The Writing on the Wall A Novel - By W. D. Wetherell Page 0,66

for me to go. The party would have been sad anyway since I’d known Mary for twenty years and hated the fact she was moving but worrying about Andy made it torture. It was seven before I could make an excuse and leave and I think Mary was hurt that I left so soon.

The fog was so thick I couldn’t drive home as fast as I wanted. The first thing I heard when I got out of the car was Nat King Cole singing Lazy Hazy Days of Summer and it made me mad that Andy could be so careless with the radio but then the words stopped and there was a burping sound and when they started up again they were in a lower key. I walked from the barn around to the front of the house. Sitting on the porch under the bug light making his fingers wiggle like he was playing piano was Sergeant Cobb.

“I thought about you last night,” he said. “Your lips, your eyes, your fine evil ass. I hate skinny bitches, no meat on them. Full breasted, that’s what enamors me. Sweet Jesus Fuck, you’re full breasted.”

What startled me was the fact he had his army uniform on. Where had he gotten it? Yesterday he hadn’t even carried a bag. On his sleeve were his sergeant stripes and over his chest a row of medals hanging down like slack little penises spray painted in gold. The uniform made his waist seem even smaller than before so I thought of the term wasp-waisted and realized for the first time how repulsive a wasp can be.

“You had a long walk from town,” I said trying to keep my voice even.

He pointed toward the grass. Parked there under the locust was an Army jeep with a white star painted on the hood and an aerial looped over in a hoop.

“Andy’s not here,” I said. “You’ve wasted your leave or assignment or mission or whatever it was brought you here.”

He swung his arm around in his favorite gesture the one that seemed to take in all the world.

“I never lost one before which is really saying something the crap they send me. Greasers and retards and hoodlums and frat boys and mental defectives. They draft them and send them to me to whip into line and somehow don’t ask me how I do it. I embark them on that plane for Saigon and the government gives me another medal and my pay goes up ten dollars a month. I never lost one. Never lost one, goddamn one. But even worse would be losing that ten dollars.”

He pushed himself up from the rocker came over to where I stood on the furthest edge of the porch. Like he was hot or his collar had suddenly become too tight for him he unbuttoned the top of his tunic until I could see the olive colored t-shirt underneath.

“Know something? If I had someone to help with the lonely part I would leave tomorrow chop chop, no questions asked.”

He brought his hand up and I thought he was going to grab my arm but it kept going higher turned into a fist tapped me lightly on the chin. A love tap was that what it was supposed to be? I backed away but now his other hand grabbed my arm and like yesterday he squeezed just hard enough to let me know it could be a whole lot harder if he chose. He pulled me toward him very slowly enjoying every second in no hurry at all and then suddenly sensing the bargain had been struck sensing by who knows what sign that I had agreed to it initialed our contract given in he pulled much harder and brought his lips down and pushed his breath into my ear.

“You’re a prevaricating little cunt, but I like that.”

He took me in through the dark up to my bedroom. I heard a scraping noise and figured it was Andy crawling to his hiding spot but it didn’t seem high enough it seemed coming from downstairs. Cobb didn’t hear it he was way past the hearing stage now. For all his swagger he stripped off his uniform fast enough like it burned like it was hateful like it was poison.

I wasn’t ashamed of what I was doing and I know that must confuse you but I don’t know how else to explain. We had our bargain and it was the same bargain whores struck every