He had thought he would be glad to see V win, like this. But he was not glad. He hated the price she seemed to have paid for the victory, and he hated the price she was making Jack pay. He remembered the cold determination he had seen etched on her face the night before he had left for San Jose, and although she kept it hidden now, he knew it had remained with her and had grown and held her firmly on a track like the blinders of a horse. Yet, in a way, she had not won; the grip she had on Jack could easily be broken, and she must know it. Because of this, and because of what she had made herself become, he pitied her, yet he wondered if V, knowing that as yet she did not really have Jack, was hurting him just for the sake of the hurting.
For, sorry as he had been for V, and sorry as he was for what she had made of herself in her desire to have Jack, he was sorrier now for Jack. Her hold on Jack was jealousy, he came to see; he would see her with others beside Jack, and he did not know how far she went to keep Jack jealous, and he tried not to care. But he was personally ashamed to see Jack losing, in jealousy, his dignity. Rooming with him Ben saw it going gradually, and on a few occasions completely gone, stripped off like a shirt from a deformed body.
One night Ben took V to a show and after the show to the Hitching Post. He had stopped at the drive-in where she worked one evening when he was riding around with Red Young, and she had as much as asked him to. But he didn’t like being used to make Jack jealous, and he told her so. He didn’t like the way she sat at the bar with her skirt up around her thighs and he told her that, too, and when he went home Jack had known where he had been, and had embarrassedly tried to make conversation to show Ben it didn’t matter. But Ben knew that it did matter. It was something else now between the two of them that could not be spoken of and there was too much of that already.
The next day on the job Red came over to talk to Ben about V. Ben knew by the sneering grin of his face what he was going to say.
“Hey, you look all shot this morning. Get much last night?”
Ben shook his head silently, telling himself that Red did not mean anything, this was just Red’s way. But Red said, “What the hell’s the matter with you? Everybody else in town’s getting it off that little teaser,” and Ben felt rage burst weakly in his chest, as though, in some way, the whole trouble were Red’s fault.
“Have you?” he said.
Red scowled. “Aw, hell, no. The bitch won’t have nothing to do with me.” He raised his water bag to his lips, drank, then corked it up. His cat, with the tampers behind, was drawn up next to Ben’s grader, and Red stood beside the cab with his elbows resting on the floorboards, scowling.
“She’s no bitch,” Ben said.
Red looked up, squinting his eyes against the sun. “Okay,” he said. “She’s no bitch. What’s the matter, you gone on that dame too?”
“She’s no bitch,” Ben said again, softly. “She’s not letting everybody get it off her, either.”
“Oh, hell, no!”
Ben leaned down toward him and said through his teeth, “Who?”
“Aw, how the hell should I know?” Red said. “But you can sure as hell tell it by the way she flashes her legs and wiggles her tail. That dame’s been around plenty since you was gone.”
“Listen,” Ben said. “Don’t say anything like that till you know it, you hear? I mean it. Goddamn it, Red. I don’t know what kind of bastard you are, but if you want to shoot off your mouth just don’t come shoot it to me.” He stopped. He was trembling, and he braced his hands on the edge of the seat, tightening his arms and staring down at Red.
Red stared back at him narrowly for a moment. The tip of his tongue came out and wet his upper lip, and Ben wondered if he were going to have to fight him. But suddenly Red made a wry face, lifted his hands in a gesture of resignation and turned away. “Gee-zus, Kee-rist!” Ben heard him say, as he walked back to his cat.
Jack drove his grader over from the fine grade for lunch, with Toussaint on the seat beside him, and they all sat in the shade of Harry’s roller to eat; Harry, Ben and Red, and Jack and Toussaint. Jack was sullen and quiet and Ben saw Toussaint looking at him with his head tilted to one side. “Jack mean today,” he said. “Look like Jack got woman trouble.”
Red laughed loudly, unscrewing the top of his thermos. “V giving you a bad time, Jack?” Jack didn’t look up, seeming not to have heard, and Harry glanced at Ben quickly.
“Well, it’s a good kind of trouble,” Red said. “Your trouble can stick her shoes under my bed any time she’s got the itch.”
Jack’s yellow eyes flickered at him, then away. He looked bored, and he stretched his legs out. Toussaint was shaking his head. “How’s the rolling going, Harry?” Ben said casually.
“Aw, it’s rough. Damn thing wanders all over the grade. That damn thing’s so old…”
But Red raised his voice. “What’s the matter, Jack? Can’t you handle it anymore?”
“Goddamn it, shut up!” Ben yelled. He jumped to his feet. But Red was looking at Jack, his thick lips drawn back in a tight grin, and turning, Ben saw Jack rise slowly. Knots of muscle had climbed on his cheekbones, and he stood over Red with his thumbs hooked on his belt. “Get up,” he said.
Red laughed and started to get up, but Ben took a step forward and stood between them.
“Cut it out, Jack,” he said. He tried to push Jack away, but Jack stood solidly, his chest pressing back against Ben’s hands, his thumbs still hooked on his belt. Ben pushed at his chest. “Cut it out,” he said gently. “You guys’re acting like a couple of kids.”
Jack said nothing, staring over Ben’s shoulder; his face was blank, but through the mask Ben could see frustration and futility and blind rage. “Get Red out of here, Harry,” he said. “Go on, beat it, Red!” He stood in front of Jack until he heard Red and Harry moving away. Jack’s eyes followed them; a muscle was twitching in his cheek. Toussaint whispered, “They gone now, Ben.”
Ben turned. Red was walking stiffly across the grade to his cat, his arms swinging, fists clenched. Harry stood beside the front wheel of the roller, lighting a cigarette and looking after him. Ben saw Jack suddenly grimace; he swung around and moved off toward his grader. Toussaint hurried after him.
When they had gone, Harry said, “They’re going to have it out.”
“Yeah.”
“Jack’d kill him,” Harry said. “Not that I’d blame him. That bastard; why can’t he ever let go of anything?”
“Red’s pretty rugged. He’s done some boxing.”
“He’s fat. Jack’s got muscles even in his ears.”
“He just looks fat.”
Harry shook his head, his lips pursed, his forehead wrinkled.
“He’s got twenty pounds on Jack,” Ben said.
“Jack’d kill him,” Harry said.
After work Ben rode home with Jack in the roadster. Jack was tense and quiet, concentrating on the road, his black hair standing on end in the wind that swept over the top of the windshield. Finally he said huskily, “Sorry about today, Ben.”
“Forget it.”
“I made a clown out of myself. I shouldn’t let that bastard get under my skin like that.”
“He rode you too far. I would’ve done the same thing, Jack.”
“No. You wouldn’t’ve,” Jack said. His knuckles were white, where they gripped the wheel, and he was driving too fast. Ben bent down to light two cigarettes, then straightened up and handed one to Jack.
“Thanks,” Jack said, and he slowed down a little. “I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me lately!” he burst out. “I get the redeye too damn easy. All the time.”
“Jack,” Ben said.
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you check out of that league?”
“You mean V?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you check out, Jack?”
They were in the city now, and Jack stopped for a red light behind a bus. Gas fumes drifted back at them. Suddenly Jack turned toward him; his face was blank, but it looked like the face that had stared over his shoulder at Red. “I can’t,” Jack said.
Ben didn’t say anything more. He had known that, and he should not have said anything. He watched the bus pull away as the light clanged and changed colors, and Jack shifted into second and swung around it. “Let’s forget it, unh?” he said.
“Yeah,” Ben said. “Let’s forget about it.”
But he did not forget about it, and when Jack was in the shower he went out and got into his car and drove downtown to Deterle’s drive-in. He was thinking that he had never felt anything so acutely as what V and Jack had done and were doing to each other. First, what Jack had done to V, and now what V was doing to Jack. They could have had something fine and good, something of the power he had glimpsed that night at the Hitching Post so long ago, and which he felt now even more strongly. He wanted it for them; desperately he wanted it for them. But instead they did this. Instead, Jack had made V cheap and calculating; instead, V was torturing Jack until, like a dog, he turned on the person nearest him. He had to make them stop it. They had to stop mutilating and destroying each other, for they were mutilating and destroying him too, and he could not separate himself from them.
There were no other cars in the service area, and he saw V come out of the grill as he parked. She walked over to him, her order pad in her hand, then seeing who it was, she waved and stuck the pad back in her belt. Her short blue skirt flicked back and forth over her thighs as she walked, and she had on a white sweater, white boots, and a blue scarf tied over her hair.
“Hello, Ben,” she said. She came up to the car and put one foot on the running board.
Ben said, “Get in a minute, V. I want to talk to you.”
“Why, Ben!”
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking, and he gripped them on the wheel. This was what he hated now; this was part of her new shell he hated. The V he had known before he had gone to San Jose would not have said that. “Don’t get cute with me, V,” he said quietly. “I want to talk about Jack.”
Her red smile faded and she walked around to the other side of the car and got in beside him. Her eyes were round and inquiring. Ben looked down at his hands once more. “What’re you trying to do to him?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. What is it you want?”
Out of the corner of his eye he could see her bare knees, and then he saw her reach up and flick the pink celluloid cupid that hung on a string from the rear-view mirror. It swung back and forth, clicking faintly against the windshield. “It was your advice,” V said.
Ben clenched his teeth and looked out the window. An old Plymouth sedan full of soldiers pulled into the service area, and the other car-hop came out of the grill and hurried over to it. The cupid clicked against the glass.
“I did what you told me to,” V said.
“Okay,” Ben said. Then after a moment he said, “I didn’t think you were going to like taking it out on him like this. You’ve got him now. I came over to ask you to quit it.”
“How do you know?”
“Know what?” He turned toward her but her eyes avoided his. “Know what?” he said angrily.
“You said I’ve got him now.”
“I just know. You know it too. I thought that was what you wanted.”
Her voice came suddenly low-pitched and intense. “See…I have to be sure. I want to know how you know, Ben.”
“I live with him.”
She put her hands over her face and laughed softly, and when she let them drop her eyes were bright and for a moment he thought the old smile was back on her face. But he couldn’t be sure. It was growing dark. The red neon sign over the grill had come on.
“Why doesn’t he tell me?” she whispered.
“How can he? Damn it, how can he? The way you’re piling it on.” He shook his head savagely. “How can he, when you’re running around with every bastard comes along, making him think you’re easy and ready. He’s too proud. Anybody’d be too proud.” He stopped as his voice became thick.
“Ben, do you think it’s been easy? Do you think this is the way I’ve wanted it?”
“Then why don’t you quit it? Do you know what I think?”
“No,” she said, and then she said, “What?”
“I think you get a kick out of seeing him crawl. Not crawl. Trying to keep from crawling.”
“No,” she whispered. “No, that’s not true.” She put out her hand and clutched the sleeve of his shirt. “You don’t think that,” she said. He could feel her hand trembling.
Finally he said, “Well, you’ve got him now. Do you want him, V?”
“Oh, yes!” Her voice was deep again. “That’s all I ever want,” she said. She put her hands over her face and her fingers looked tight and bloodless where they pressed against her forehead. But she was laughing, almost hysterically, when she put her hands on his shoulders, and she kissed him on the mouth and slid over to the door.
Ben put his fingers to his lips as he watched her get out. She stood on the asphalt, holding the door open. Her face was soft and completely beautiful. In the rosy light of the neon sign it looked like Arlene’s face, the night she had shown him the gold football Bill Rasmussen had given her.
“I’m going to see him tomorrow night,” she whispered. “You’ll see what happens now, Ben. You’ll see!” She slammed the door shut and ran over to the grill.
He sat motionless for a long time, before he started the Chevrolet and drove out. He parked in front of a bar in the next block and went in and got drunk.
When he went home it was after midnight and Jack was asleep. Ben didn’t turn on the light, standing looking down at Jack, swaying slightly, sick in the pit of his stomach. Finally he kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed in his clothing, his hands clasped under his head, staring up into the blackness of the room. Things whirled in the darkness, and the room swayed from side to side. Jack and V were caught up in it, as he was. He felt sweat break out all over his body for he was sitting alone in the rumble seat of the roadster, and in the front seat Jack and V were entangled and wrapped in each other’s arms until he could not tell one from the other. The roadster was swaying back and forth across the road, not in time to any song, but in deadly silence, the arcs wider and wider and the pace faster, and he sat rigid and sweating in the rumble seat, gripping the sides and watching the couple on the front seat with fascinated, frozen horror.