“I was hoping you might set me up.”
“You definitely shouldn’t be here—I don’t like it.”
“I’m aware of that, and I apologize.”
“You’re not listening. I’m saying I don’t like it. You know what I’m saying? I’m not talking about the thing, I’m talking about the thing behind the thing, the thing behind the thing behind the thing. You know what I’m saying?”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Perry said. “If you could just set me up, I’d be happy to pay full retail price, and I’ll be on my way again.”
The guy continued to nod. He’d been edgy and distracted the last time Perry saw him, six weeks ago, behind the A&P, but nothing like this. It came to Perry that he was looking at a speed freak. He’d heard about them but had never seen one. He didn’t want to leave, because the crater was waiting for him, right outside the house, but a self-preservative instinct was asserting itself. He turned toward the door.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, where you going?” The guy bounded over and put his hand on the door. There were ugly sores on the inside of his arm, a very rank odor coming off him. “What are you doing to me? I can’t deal with the dimensions of this.”
“If you can’t help me—”
“You’re fucking me over. Every one of you is fucking me over. I don’t have any weed, all right? Merry Christmas, Happy New Year—where’s your money?”
“I think I’d better go.”
“No no no no no no. You like the pills, you like the ’ludes, I’ve still got Ludydudies.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not in the market.”
The guy nodded vigorously. “That’s okay, man, we’re still good. Just don’t go anywhere, right? Stay here, don’t move, I’ve got something else for you.”
In his bare feet, with his hitching gait, he lumbered into the rear of the house, where the dog howled again. His eagerness, the shift in power it represented, was somewhat alleviating Perry’s fear, and he wondered what the something else might be.
The guy returned shaking a glass jar like a maraca, a Planters Peanuts jar with several hundred pills in it, a quantity that told Perry they couldn’t be valuable. Amphetamines, presumably. Not a substance he’d ever had reason to try.
“Take a handful,” the guy said, “there’s no such thing as too many.”
The lid of the jar hit the entry rug with a dull clank and rolled away. The open jar was offered with a trembling hand.
“What have we here?” Perry said.
“Take like four of ’em and chew ’em—you’ll see, there’s no such thing as too many, you’ll forget about your weed. Chew ’em up and wait a minute, it’ll hit you. The first four are on me, because, shit, man, it’s Christmas, I’ll give you another forty for your twenty dollars, you’ll forget about your weed, this shit’s like a bomb, take take take. If you like it, which you will, I can set you up with the big bomb. Take take take.”
The dark crater had appeared in front of Perry; it was both behind him and in front of him, which could only mean that he was falling into it. He held out his hand.
Having performed the task that Frances had set him, having secured a place on the Crossroads spring trip to Arizona, Russ returned to his office in a state of exultation. On the desk where his lady had sat in her hunting cap, her legs parted, he saw an Arizona landscape unfolding. In his mind, he was already driving deep into this landscape. He was tempted to call her immediately and report his accomplishment, but all afternoon, all evening, she’d been running the show, provoking his ardor, withholding rewards, and this needed to stop. It was he who’d slain the dragon! He who’d had the guts to knock on Ambrose’s door! Better, he thought, to leave her in suspense. Better to let her wonder until she finally had to ask. And then, casually, let drop that he’d forgiven Ambrose and was going to Arizona.
He locked his office and went down to the parking lot. In the snow on his Fury’s rear window, some teenaged hand had inscribed the word OOPS. Hearing the music from the function hall, he recalled that he and Frances wouldn’t be alone in Arizona; there would also be busloads of potentially hostile young people. It occurred to him that he was still wearing his sheepskin coat.
He had a guilty impulse to go back for his other one, but he was done with being gutless. He could wear whatever goddamned coat he pleased. He no longer cared if Marion knew he’d spent the day with Frances. In the future, yes, if he commenced an affair and it grew into something larger, a new life, a second chance, the repercussions would be daunting, but for now his only detectable crime was the little lie he’d told at breakfast. If Marion remarked on the sheepskin coat, made the mildest insinuation, he would blast her with the news that Perry was a pot smoker. Even better, he would tell her about Ambrose. For three years, she’d been maligning Rick, reinforcing Russ’s grudge against him, and when she learned that Russ had forgiven him, unilaterally, without consulting her, she was bound to feel betrayed. No doubt she’d imagined she was being a loyal wife. But she, in a sense, had betrayed him first. If she hadn’t been so supportive of his failings, he might have made peace long ago. Frances had restored him to his courage, his edge, by believing he was capable of more.