Garp's Night Out

Garp disapproved of Ralph's mother. This was unfair—he did not know the woman, but he was convinced he knew her type. She struck him as grossly disorganized; carelessness, for Garp, was especially unforgivable in the case of a parent. Garp's son, Duncan, was ten—"not out of danger, by any means," Garp often told his wife, Helen. Duncan had been a (continued on page 128) Grap's Night Out (continued from page 115) watched-over child, and now that he had reached an age where he was expected to be responsible—and more independent—Garp was extremely nervous about him. Duncan was a sensible child, but Garp feared for what influences the boy's new freedom would uncover.

Ralph, for example. A normal boy, perhaps; not retarded, not even wild—not even impolite. But Ralph was allowed to do things that Garp did not allow Duncan to do. What Garp would not say in front of Duncan (and his worst fear) was that Ralph's mother left Ralph alone at night when she went "out." She was recently divorced, and Garp hoped he felt no bias in that regard, but the woman seemed to him both too casual and too troubled. He was always nervous when Duncan was asked to spend the night with Ralph.

"Why not ask Ralph to spend the night here?" Garp suggested. A familiar ploy—Ralph usually spent the night with Duncan, thus sparing Garp his anxiety about the carelessness of Mrs. Ralph (he could never remember her name).

"Ralph always spends the night here," Duncan said. "I want to stay there." And do what? Garp wondered. Drink, smoke dope, torture the pets, spy on the sloppy lovemaking of Mrs. Ralph?

But Garp knew that the boys probably enjoyed being left alone in a house where Garp wasn't always smiling over them, asking them if there was anything they wanted. He was a colossal worrier who liked to cook to relax himself. Whenever Duncan spent the night at Ralph's house, and Garp knew that he and Helen would have supper alone, he frequently cooked up a storm.

If he could have been granted one vast and naïve wish, it would have been that he could make the world safe. For children and grownups. The world struck Garp as unnecessarily perilous for both.

•

Garp drove a wooden spoon deep into his tomato sauce. He flinched as some fool took the corner by the house with a roaring downshift and a squeal of tires that cut through Garp with the sound of a struck cat. He was not worried, this time, that the speeding car meant Duncan had been hit—he knew where Duncan was—but it was Garp's habit to chase down speeding cars. He had bullied every fast driver in the neighborhood. The streets around Garp's house were cut in squares, bordered every block by stop signs; Garp could usually catch up to a car, on foot, provided the cars obeyed the stop signs.

He ran down the street after the sound of the car. Sometimes, if the car were going really fast, Garp would need three or four stop signs to make the arrest. Most drivers were impressed with Garp, and even if they swore about him later, they were apologetic to his face, assuring him they would not speed in the neighborhood again. It was clear to them that Garp was in good physical shape, and most of them were high school kids who were easily embarrassed—caught hot-rodding around with their girlfriends, or leaving little smoking rubber stains in front of their girlfriends' houses. Garp was not such a fool as to imagine that he changed their ways. All he hoped to do was make them speed somewhere else.

The present offender turned out to be a woman (Garp saw her earrings glinting, and the bracelets on her arm, as he ran up to her from behind). She was just ready to pull away from the stop sign when Garp rapped the wooden spoon on her window, startling her; the spoon, dribbling tomato sauce, looked at a glance as if it had been dipped in blood.

Garp waited for her to roll down the window, and was already phrasing his opening remarks ("I'm sorry if I startled you, but I wanted to ask you a personal favor ...") when he recognized that the woman was Ralph's mother, the notorious Mrs. Ralph. Duncan and Ralph were not with her; she was alone, and it was obvious that she had been crying.

"Yes, what is it?" she said; Garp couldn't tell if she recognized him as Duncan's father or not.

"I'm sorry I startled you," Garp began. He stopped. What else could he say to her? Smeary-faced, fresh from a fight with her ex-husband or a lover, she looked rumpled with misery; her eyes were red and vague. "I'm sorry," Garp mumbled; he was sorry for her whole life. How could he tell her that all he wanted was for her to slow down?

"What is it?" she asked him.

"I'm Duncan's father," Garp said.

"I know you are," she said. "I'm Ralph's mother."

"I know," he said; he smiled.

"Duncan's father meets Ralph's mother," she said, caustically. Then she burst into tears. Her face flopped forward and struck the horn. She sat up straight, suddenly hitting Garp's hand, resting on her rolled-down window; his fingers opened and he dropped the long-handled spoon into her lap. They both stared at it; the tomato sauce produced a stain on her beige dress.

"You must think I'm a rotten mother," Mrs. Ralph said. Garp, ever conscious of safety, reached across her knees and turned off the ignition. He decided to leave the spoon in her lap. It was Garp's curse to be unable to conceal his feelings from people, even from strangers; if he thought contemptuous thoughts about you, somehow you knew.

"I don't know anything about what kind of mother you are," Garp told her. "I think Ralph's a nice boy."

"He can be a real little bastard," she said.

"Perhaps you'd rather Duncan not stay with you tonight?" Garp asked—Garp hoped. To Garp, she didn't appear to know that Duncan was spending the night with Ralph. She looked at the spoon in her lap. "It's tomato sauce," Garp said. To his surprise, she picked up the spoon and licked it.

"You're a cook?" she asked.

"Yes, I like to cook," Garp said.

"It's very good," Mrs. Ralph told him, handing him back his spoon. "I should have gotten one like you, some prick who liked to cook."

"I'd be glad to go pick up the boys," Garp said. "They could spend the night with us, if you'd like to be alone."

"Alone!" she cried. "I'm usually alone, I like having the boys with me. And they like it, too," she said. "Do you know why?" She looked at him wickedly.

"Why?" Garp said.

"They like to watch me take a bath," she said. "There's a crack in the door. Isn't it sweet that Ralph likes to show off his old mother to his friends?"

"Yes," Garp said.

"You don't approve, do you, Mr. Garp?" she asked him. "You don't approve of me at all."

"I'm sorry you're so unhappy," Garp said. He remembered that Mrs. Ralph was going to school. "What are you majoring in?" he asked her, stupidly. He recalled she was a never-ending graduate student; her problem was probably a thesis that wouldn't come.

Mrs. Ralph shook her head. "You really keep your nose clean, don't you?" she asked Garp. "How long have you been married?"

"Eleven years," Garp said. Mrs. Ralph looked more or less indifferent; Mrs. Ralph had been married for 12.

"Your kid's safe with me," she said, as if she were suddenly irritated by him, as if she were reading his mind with utter accuracy. "Don't worry, I'm quite harmless—with children," she added. "And I don't smoke in bed."

"I'm sure it's quite healthy for the boys to watch you take a bath," Garp told her, then felt immediately embarrassed for saying it, although it was one of the few things he'd told her that he meant.

"I don't know," she said. "It didn't seem to do much good for my husband, and he watched me for years." She looked up at Garp, whose mouth hurt from all his forced smiles. Just touch her cheek, or pat her hand, he thought; at least say something. But Garp was clumsy at being (continued on page 176) Grap's Night Out (continued from page 128) kind, and he didn't flirt. Mrs. Ralph's smile, Garp noticed with concern, was sincere and appealing.

"Well, husbands are funny," he mumbled. "I don't think many of them know what they want."

"My husband found a nineteen-year-old twat," Mrs. Ralph said. "He seems to want her." Mrs. Ralph clenched her fists in her lap, staring at the stain on her dress, which marked her crotch with a tomato-sauce bull's-eye. "Boy. that's me all over," she said, staring at the spot.

"I'm sorry," Garp said. "It may leave a permanent stain."

"Everything leaves a stain!" Mrs. Ralph cried. A laughter so witless escaped her that it frightened Garp. He didn't say anything and she said to him, "I'll bet you think that all I need is a good lay."

To be fair, Garp rarely thought this of people, but when Mrs. Ralph mentioned it, he did think that, in her case, this oversimple solution might apply.

"And I'll bet you think I'd let you do it," she said, glaring at him. Garp, in fact, did think so.

"No, I don't think you would," he said.

"Yes, you think I would love to," Mrs. Ralph said.

Garp hung his head. "No," he said.

"Well, in your case," she said, "I just might.It might make you a little less smug."

"Please drive carefully," Garp said; he pushed himself away from her car. "If there's anything I can do, please call." He meant if there was anything he could do with the boys.

"Like, if I need a good lover?" Mrs. Ralph asked him, nastily.

"No, not that," Garp said.

"Why did you stop me?" she asked him.

"Because I thought you were driving too fast," he said.

"I think you're a pompous fart." she told him.

"I think you're a slob," Garp told her. She cried out as if she were stabbed.

"Look. I'm sorry," he said (again), "but I'll just come pick up Duncan."

"No, please," she said. "I can look after him, I really want to. He'll be all right; I'll look after him like he was my own." This didn't comfort Garp. "I'm not that much of a slob, with kids," she added; again, she managed an alarmingly attractive smile.

"I'm sorry," Garp said—his litany.

"So am I," said Mrs. Ralph. She started her car and drove past the stop sign and through the intersection without looking. She drove away, more or less in the middle of the road, and Garp waved his wooden spoon after her.

•

Long after Garp and Helen made love, and Helen fell asleep, Garp got dressed. When he sat on his bed to tie his track shoes, he sat on Helen's leg and woke her up. She reached out her hand to touch him, then felt his running shorts.

"Where are you going?" she asked him.

"To check on Duncan," he said. Helen stretched up on her elbows, looked at her watch. It was after one in the morning and she knew Duncan was at Ralph's house.

"How are you going to check on Duncan?" she asked Garp.

"I don't know," Garp said.

•

Like a gunman hunting his victim, like the child molester the parent dreads, Garp stalks the sleeping spring suburbs, green and dark; the people snore and wish and dream, their lawn mowers at rest; it is too cool for their air conditioners to be running. A few windows are open, a few refrigerators are humming. There is the faint, trapped warble from some televisions tuned in to the Late Show and the blue-gray glow from the picture tubes throbs from a few of the houses. To Garp this glow looks like cancer, insidious and numbing, putting the world to sleep.

Garp moves lightly along the street; he wants to meet no one. His running shoes are loosely laced, his track shorts flap (he hasn't worn a jock, because he hasn't planned to run); though the spring air is cool, he wears no shirt. In the blackened houses, an occasional dog snorfles as Garp passes by. Fresh from sex, just dipped in the syrup of lovemaking, Garp imagines that his scent is as keen as a cut strawberry. He knows the dogs can smell him.

These are well-policed suburbs and for a moment, Garp is apprehensive that he might be caught—in violation of some unwritten dress code, at least guilty of carrying no identification. He hurries, convinced he's going to Duncan's aid, rescuing his son from the randy Mrs. Ralph.

When Garp first sees Ralph's house, he believes it should be given the Light of the Block award; every window is glaring, the front door is open, the cancerous television is violently loud. Garp suspects Mrs. Ralph is having a party, but as he creeps closer—her lawn festooned with dog messes and mangled sports equipment—he feels the house is deserted. The television's lethal rays pulsate through the living room, clogged with piles of shoes and clothes; and crammed against the sagging couch are the casual bodies of Duncan and Ralph, half in their sleeping bags, asleep (of course), but looking as if the television has murdered them. In the sickly TV light, their faces look drained of blood.

But where is Mrs. Ralph? Out for the evening? Gone to bed with all the lights on and the door open, leaving the boys to be bathed by the television? Garp wonders if she has remembered to shut the oven off. The living room is pockmarked with ashtrays; Garp fears for cigarettes still smoldering. He stays behind the hedges and slinks to the kitchen window, sniffing for gas.

There is a litter of dishes in the sink, a bottle of gin on the kitchen table, the sour smell of slashed limes. The cord to the overhead light, at one time too short, has been substantially lengthened by one sheer leg and hip of a woman's pair of panty hose—severed up the middle, the whereabouts of the other half unclear. The nylon foot, spotted with translucent stains of grease, dangles in the breeze above the gin. There is nothing burning that Garp can smell, unless there's a slow fire under the cat, who lies neatly on top of the stove, artfully spread between the burners, its chin resting on the handle of a heavy skillet, its furry belly warmed by the pilot lights. Garp and the cat stare at each other. The cat blinks.

But Garp knows that Mrs. Ralph hasn't the necessary concentration to turn herself into a cat. Her home—her life—in utter disarray, the woman appears to have abandoned ship, or perhaps passed out upstairs. Is she in bed? Or in the bathtub, drowned? And where is the beast whose dangerous droppings have made a mine field out of the lawn?

Just then there is a thunderous approach down the back staircase of a heavy, falling body, which bashes open the stairway entrance door to the kitchen, startling the cat into flight, skidding the greasy iron skillet to the floor. Mrs. Ralph sits bare-assed and wincing on the linoleum, a kimono-style robe wide open and roughly tugged above her waist, a miraculously unspilled drink in her hand. She looks at the drink, surprised, and sips it; her large, downpointing breasts shine—they slouch across her freckled chest as she leans back on her elbows and burps. The cat, in a corner of the kitchen, yowls at her, complaining.

"Oh, shut up, Titsy," Mrs. Ralph says to the cat. But when she tries to get up, she groans and lies down flat on her back. Her pubic hair is wet and glistens at Garp, her belly is furrowed with stretch marks, looking as white and parboiled as if she has been under water for a long time. "I'll get you out of here, if it's the last thing I do," Mrs. Ralph tells the kitchen ceiling, though Garp assumes she's speaking to the cat. Perhaps she's broken her ankle and is too drunk to feel it, Garp thinks; perhaps she's broken her back.

Garp glides alongside the house to the open front door. He calls inside. "Anybody home?" he shouts. The cat bolts between his legs and is gone outside. Garp waits. He hears grunts from the kitchen, the strange sounds of flesh slipping.

"Well, as I live and breathe," says Mrs. Ralph, veering into the doorway, her robe of faded flowers more or less drawn together; somewhere, she's ditched her drink.

"I saw all the lights on and thought there might be trouble," Garp mumbles.

"Well, you're too late," Mrs. Ralph tells him. "Both boys are dead. I should never have let them play with that bomb." She probes Garp's unchanging face for any sign of a sense of humor there, but she finds him rather humorless on this subject. "OK, you want to see the bodies?" she asks. She pulls him toward her by the elastic waistband of his running shorts. Garp, aware he's not wearing a jock, stumbles quickly after his pants, bumping into Mrs. Ralph, who lets him go with a snap and wanders into the living room. Her odor confuses him, like vanilla spilled in the bottom of a deep, damp paper bag.

Mrs. Ralph seizes Duncan under his arms and with astonishing strength lifts him in his sleeping bag to the mountainous, lumpy couch; Garp helps her lift Ralph, who's heavier. They arrange the boys foot to foot on the couch, tucking their sleeping bags around them and setting pillows under their heads. Garp turns off the TV and Mrs. Ralph stumbles through the room, killing lights, gathering ashtrays. "Night-y night," she whispers to the suddenly dark living room, as Garp trips over a hassock, groping his way toward the kitchen lights. "You can't go yet," Mrs. Ralph hisses to him. "You've got to help me get someone out of here." She takes his arm, drops an ashtray; her kimono opens wide. Garp, bending to pick up the ashtray, brushes one of her breasts with his hair. "I've got this lummox up in my bedroom," she tells Garp, "and he won't go. I can't make him leave."

"A lummox?" Garp says.

"He's a real oaf," says Mrs. Ralph, "a fucking wingding."

"A wingding?" Garp says.

"Yes, please make him go," she tells Garp. She pulls out the elastic waistband of his shorts again, and this time she takes an unconcealed look. "God, you don't wear too much, do you?" she asks him. "Aren't you cold?" She lays her hand flat on his bare stomach. "No, you're not," she says, shrugging.

Garp edges away from her. "Who is he?" Garp asks, fearing he might get involved in evicting Mrs. Ralph's former husband from the house.

"Come on, I'll show you," she whispers. She draws him up the back staircase through a narrow channel that passes between the piled laundry and enormous stacks of pet food. No wonder she fell down here, he thinks.

In Mrs. Ralph's bedroom, Garp looks immediately at the sprawled black Labrador retriever on Mrs. Ralph's undulating water bed. The dog rolls listlessly on his side and thumps his tail. Mrs. Ralph mates with her dog, Garp thinks, and she can't get him out of her bed. "Come on, boy," Garp says. "Get out of here." The dog thumps his tail harder' and pees a little.

"Not him," Mrs. Ralph says, giving Garp a terrific shove; he catches his balance on the bed, which sloshes. The great dog licks his face. Mrs. Ralph is pointing to an easy chair at the foot of the bed, but Garp first sees the young man reflected in Mrs. Ralph's dressing-table mirror. Sitting naked in the chair, he is combing out the blond end of his thin ponytail, which he holds over his shoulder and sprays with one of Mrs. Ralph's aerosol cans. His belly and thighs have the same slick buttered look that Garp saw on the flesh and fur of Mrs. Ralph, and his young cock is as lean and arched as the backbone of a whippet.

"Hey, how you doing?" the kid says to Garp.

"Fine, thank you," Garp says.

"Get rid of him," says Mrs. Ralph.

"I've been trying to get her to just relax, you know?" the kid asks Garp. 'I'm trying to get her to just sort of go with it, you know?"

"Don't let him talk to you," Mrs. Ralph says. "He'll bore the shit out of you."

"Everyone's so tense," the kid tells Garp; he turns in the chair, leans back and puts his feet on the water bed; the dog licks his long toes. Mrs. Ralph kicks his legs off the bed. "You see what I mean?" the kid asks Garp.

"She wants you to leave," Garp says.

"You her husband?" the kid asks.

"That's right," says Mrs. Ralph, "and he'll pull your silly little prick off if you don't get out of here."

"You better go," Garp tells him. "I'll help you find your clothes."

The kid shuts his eyes, appears to meditate. "He's really great at that shit." Mrs. Ralph tells Garp. "All this kid's good for is shutting his damn eyes."

"Where are your clothes?" Garp asks the boy. Perhaps he's 17, 18, Garp thinks. Maybe he's old enough for college, or a war. The boy dreams on and Garp gently shakes him by the shoulder.

"Don't touch me, man," the boy says, eyes still closed. There is something foolishly threatening in his voice that makes Garp draw back and look at Mrs. Ralph. She shrugs.

"That's what he said to me, too," she says. Like her smiles, Garp notices, Mrs. Ralph's shrugs are instinctual, sincere. Garp grabs the boy's ponytail and tugs it across his throat and around to the back of his neck; he snaps the boy's head into the cradle of his arm and holds him tightly there. The kid's eyes open.

"Get your clothes, OK?" Garp tells him.

"Don't touch me," the boy repeats.

"I am touching you," Garp says.

"Ok, Ok," says the boy. Garp lets him get up. The boy is several inches taller than Garp but easily 15 pounds lighter. He looks for his clothing, but Mrs. Ralph has already found it—a long purple caftan, absurdly heavy with brocade. The boy climbs into it like armor.

"It was nice balling you," he tells Mrs. Ralph, "but you should learn to relax more." Mrs. Ralph laughs so harshly that the dog stops wagging its tail.

"You should go back to day one," she tells the kid, "and learn everything all over again, from the beginning." She stretches out on the water bed beside the Labrador, who lolls his head across her stomach. "Oh, cut it out, Bill!" she tells the dog crossly.

"She's very unrelaxed," the kid informs Garp.

"You don't know shit about how to relax anybody," Mrs. Ralph says.

Garp steers the young man out of the room and down the treacherous back staircase, through the kitchen to the open front door.

"You know, she asked me in," the boy explains. "It was her idea."

"She asked you to leave, too," Garp says.

"You know, you're as unrelaxed as she is," the boy tells him.

"Did the kids know what was up?" Garp asks him. "Were they asleep when you two went upstairs?"

"Don't worry about the kids," the boy says. "Kids are beautiful, man. And they know much more than grownups think they know. Kids are just perfect people until grownups get their hands on them. The kids were just fine. Kids are always just fine."

Until now, Garp has felt great patience toward the young man, but Garp isn't patient on the subject of children; he accepts no other authority there. "Goodbye," Garp tells the boy. "And don't come back." He shoves him, but lightly, out the open door.

"Don't push me!" the kid shouts, but Garp ducks under the punch and comes up with his arms locked around the kid's waist; to Garp it feels that the kid weighs 75, maybe 80 pounds, though, of course, he's heavier than that. He bear-hugs the boy and carries him out to the sidewalk. When the kid stops struggling, Garp puts him down.

"You know where to go?" Garp asks him. "Do you need any directions?" The kid breathes deeply, feels his ribs. "And don't tell your friends where they can come sniffing around after it," Garp says. "Don't even use the phone."

"I don't even know her name, man," the kid whines.

"And don't call me man again," says Garp.

"Ok, man," the kid says. Garp feels a pleasant dryness in his throat that he recognizes as his readiness to touch someone, but he lets the feeling pass.

"Please walk away from here," Garp says.

A block away, the boy calls, " 'Bye, man!" Garp knows how quickly he could run him down; anticipation of such a comedy appeals to him, but it would be disappointing if the boy weren't scared and Garp feels no pressing need to hurt him. Garp waves. The boy raises his middle finger and walks on, his silly robe dragging—an early Christian lost in the suburbs.

Back inside, Mrs. Ralph is crying. Garp hears her talking to the dog. "Oh, Bill," she sobs. "I'm sorry I abuse you, Bill. You're so nice."

"Goodbye!" Garp calls up the staircase. "Your friend's gone, and I'm going, too."

"Chickenshit!" yells Mrs. Ralph. "How can you leave me like this?" Her wailing grows louder; soon, thinks Garp, the dog will start to bay.

"What can I do?" Garp calls up the stairs.

"You could at least stay and talk to me!" Mrs. Ralph shouts. "You goody-goody chickenshit wingding."

What's a wingding? Garp wonders, navigating the stairs.

"You probably think this happens to me all the time," says Mrs. Ralph, in utter rumplement on the water bed. She sits with her legs crossed, her kimono tight around her, Bill's large head in her lap.

Garp, in fact, does think so, but he shakes his head.

"I don't get my rocks off by humiliating myself, you know," Mrs. Ralph says. "For God's sake, sit down." She pulls Garp to the rocking bed. "There's not enough water in the damn thing," Mrs. Ralph explains. "My husband used to fill it all the time, because it leaks."

"I'm sorry," Garp says.

"I hope you never walk out on your wife," Mrs. Ralph tells Garp. She takes his hand and holds it in her lap: the dog licks his fingers. "It's the shittiest thing a man can do," says Mrs. Ralph. "He just told me he'd been faking his interest in me, 'for years'! he said. And thenhe said that almost anyother woman, young or old, looked better to him than I did. That's not very nice, is it?" Mrs. Ralph asks Garp.

"No, it isn't," Garp agrees.

"Please believe me, I never messed around with anyone until he left me," Mrs. Ralph tells him.

"I believe you," Garp says.

"It's very hard on a woman's confidence," Mrs. Ralph says. "Why shouldn't I try to have some fun?"

"You should," Garp says.

"But I'm so bad at it!" Mrs. Ralph confesses, holding her hands to her eyes, rocking on the bed. The dog tries to lick her face, but Garp pushes him away; the dog thinks Garp is playing with him and lunges across Mrs. Ralph's lap. Garp whacks the dog's nose—too hard—and the poor beast whines and slinks away. "Don't you hurt Bill!" Mrs. Ralph shouts.

"I was just trying to help you," Garp says.

"You don't help me by hurting Bill," Mrs. Ralph says. "Jesus, is everyone crazy?"

Garp slumps back on the water bed, eyes shut tight; the bed rolls like a small sea and Garp groans. "I don't know how to help you," he confesses. "I'm very sorry about your troubles, but there's really nothing I can do, is there? If you want to tell me anything, go ahead," he says, his eyes still shut tight, "but nobody can help the way you feel."

"That's a cheerful thing to say to someone," Mrs. Ralph says. Bill is breathing in Garp's hair. There is a tentative lick at his ear. Garp wonders, Is it Bill or Mrs. Ralph? Then he feels her hand grab him under his track shorts and he thinks, coldly: If I didn't really want her to do that, why did I lie down on my back?

"Please don't do that," he says. She can certainly feel he's not interested and she lets him go. She lies down beside him, then rolls away, putting her back to him. Bill tries to wriggle between them, but Mrs. Ralph elbows him so hard in his thick rib cage that the dog coughs and abandons the bed for the floor.

"Poor Bill," Mrs. Ralph says, crying softly. Bill's hard tail thumps the floor. Mrs. Ralph, as if to complete her self-humiliation, farts. Her sobbing is steady, like the kind of rain Garp knows can last all day. Garp wonders what could give the woman a little confidence.

"Mrs. Ralph?" Garp says, then tries to bite back what he's said.

"What?" she says. "What'd you say?" She struggles up to her elbows and turns her head to glare at him; she heard him, he knows. "Did you say 'Mrs. Ralph'?" she asks him. "Jesus, 'Mrs. Ralph'!" she cries. "You don't even know my name!"

Garp sits up on the edge of the bed; he feels like joining Bill on the floor. "I find you very attractive," he mumbles to Mrs. Ralph, but he's facing Bill. "Really, I do."

"Prove it," Mrs. Ralph says. "You goddamn liar. Show me."

"I can't show you," Garp says, "but it's not because I don't find you attractive."

"I don't even give you an erection!" Mrs. Ralph shouts. "Here I am, half-naked, and when you're beside me—on my goddamn bed—you don't even have a respectable hard-on."

"I was trying to conceal it from you," Garp says.

"You succeeded," Mrs. Ralph says. "What's my name?"

Garp feels he has never been so aware of one of his terrible weaknesses: how he needs to have people like him, how he wants to be appreciated. With every word, he knows, he is deeper in trouble and deeper into an obvious lie. Now he knows what a wingding is.

"Your husband must be crazy," Garp says. "You look better to me than most women."

"Oh, please stop it," says Mrs. Ralph. "You must be sick."

I must be, Garp agrees, but he says, "You should have confidence in your sexuality, believe me. And, more importantly, you should have confidence in yourself in other ways."

"There never were any other ways," Mrs. Ralph admits. "I was never any good at anything but sex, and now I'm no good at sex, either."

"But you're going to school," Garp says, groping.

"I'm sure I don't know why," Mrs. Ralph says. Garp squints hard, wishes for unconsciousness; when he hears the water bed sound like surf, he senses danger and opens his eyes. Mrs. Ralph has undressed, has spread herself out on the bed naked. The little waves are still lapping under her rough-tough body, which confronts Garp like a sturdy rowboat moored on choppy water. "Show me that you've got a hard-on and you can go," she says. "Show me your hard-on and I'll believe you like me."

Garp tries to think of an erection; in order to do this, he shuts his eyes and thinks of someone else.

"You bastard," says Mrs. Ralph, but Garp discovers he is already hard. Opening his eyes, he's forced to recognize that Mrs. Ralph is not without allure. He pulls down his track shorts and shows himself to her. The gesture itself makes him harder; he finds himself liking her damp, curly hair. But Mrs. Ralph seems neither disappointed nor impressed with the demonstration; she is resigned to being let down. She shrugs. She rolls over and turns her great round rump to Garp. "OK, so you can actually get it up," she tells him. "Thank you. You can go home now."

Garp feels like touching her. Sickened with embarrassment, Garp feels he could come by just looking at her. He blunders out the door, down the wretched staircase. Is the woman's self-abuse all over for this night? he wonders. Is Duncan safe?

He contemplates extending his vigil until the comforting light of dawn. Stepping on the fallen skillet and clanging it against the stove, he hears not even a sigh from Mrs. Ralph and only a groan from Bill. If the boys were to wake up and need anything, he knows Mrs. Ralph wouldn't hear them.

It's 3:30 A.M. in Mrs. Ralph's finally quiet house when Garp decides to clean the kitchen, to kill the time until dawn. Familiar with a housewife's tasks, Garp fills the sink and starts to wash the dishes.

•

When the phone rang, Garp knew it was Helen; it suddenly occurred to him—all the terrible things she could have on her mind.

"Hello," Garp said.

"Would you tell me what's going on, please?" Helen asked. Garp knew she had been awake a long time. It was four o'clock in the morning.

"Nothing's going on, Helen," Garp said. "There was a little trouble here and I didn't want to leave Duncan."

"Where is that woman?" Helen asked.

"In bed," Garp admitted. "She passed out."

"From what?" Helen asked.

"She'd been drinking," Garp said. "There was a young man here, with her, and she wanted me to get him to leave."

"So then you were alone with her?" Helen asked.

"Not for long," Garp said. "She fell asleep."

"I don't imagine it would take very long," Helen said, "with her."

Garp let there be silence. He had not experienced Helen's jealousy for two years, but he had no trouble remembering its surprising sharpness.

"Nothing's going on, Helen," Garp said.

"Tell me what you're doing, exactly, at this moment," Helen said.

"I'm washing the dishes," Garp told her. He heard her take a long, controlled breath.

"I wonder why you're still there," Helen said.

"I didn't want to leave Duncan," Garp told her.

"I think you should bring Duncan home," Helen said. "Right now."

"Helen," Garp said, "I've been good." It sounded defensive, even to Garp; he knew he hadn't been quite good enough. "Nothing has happened," he added, feeling a little more sure of the truth of that.

"I won't ask you why you're washing her filthy dishes," Helen said.

"To pass the time," Garp said. But in truth, he had not examined what he was doing, until now, and it seemed pointless to him—waiting for dawn, as if accidents happened only when it was dark. "I'm waiting for Duncan to wake up," he said, but as soon as he spoke, he felt there was no sense to that, either.

"Why not just wake him up?" Helen asked.

"Also, I'm good at washing dishes," Garp said, trying to introduce a little humor.

"I know all the things you're good at," Helen told him, a little too bitterly to pass as a joke.

"You'll make yourself sick, thinking like this," Garp said. "Helen, really, please stop it. I haven't done anything wrong." But Garp had a puritan's niggling memory of the hard-on Mrs. Ralph had given him.

"I've already made myself sick," Helen said, but her voice softened. "Please come home now," she told him.

"And leave Duncan?"

"For Christ's sake, wake him up!" she said. "Or carry him."

"I'll be right home," Garp told her. "Please don't worry, don't think what you're thinking. I'll tell you everything that happened. You'll probably love the story." But he knew he would have trouble telling her this story and that he would have to think very carefully about the parts to leave out.

"I feel better," Helen said. "I'll see you, soon. Please don't wash another dish." Then she hung up and Garp reviewed the kitchen. He thought that his half hour of work hadn't made enough of a difference for Mrs. Ralph to notice that any effort to approach the debris had even been begun.

Garp sought Duncan's clothes among the many forbidding clots of clothing Hung about the living room. He knew Duncan's clothes, but he couldn't find them anywhere; then he remembered that Duncan, like a hamster, stored his things in the bottom of his sleeping bag and crawled into the nest with them. Duncan weighed about 80 pounds, plus the bag, plus his junk, but Garp believed he could carry the child home. At least, Garp decided, he would not wake Duncan up inside Ralph's house. There might be a scene; Duncan would be fussy about it. Mrs. Ralph might even wake up.

Then Garp thought of Mrs. Ralph. Furious at himself, he knew he wanted one last look; his sudden, recurring erection reminded him that he wanted to see her thick, crude body again. He moved quickly to the back staircase; he could have found her fetid room with his nose.

He looked straight at her crotch, her rather small nipples (for such big breasts). He should have looked first at her eyes; then he might have realized she was wide-awake and staring back at him.

"Dishes all done?" asked Mrs. Ralph." Come to say goodbye?"

"I wanted to see if you were all right," he told her.

"Bullshit," she said. "You wanted another look."

"Yes," he confessed; he looked away. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she said. "It's made my day." Garp tried to smile.

"You're too 'sorry' all the time," Mrs. Ralph said. "What a sorry man you are. Except to your wife," Mrs. Ralph said. "You never once said you were sorry to her."

There was a phone beside the water bed. Garp felt he had never so badly misread a person's condition as he had misread Mrs. Ralph's. She was suddenly no drunker than Bill; or she had become miraculously undrunk, or she was enjoying that half hour of clarity between stupor and hangover—a half hour Garp had read about but had always believed was a myth. Another illusion.

"I'm taking Duncan home," Garp told her. She nodded.

"If I were you," she said, "I'd take him home, too."

Garp fought back another "I'm sorry," suppressed it after a short but serious struggle.

"Do me one favor?" said Mrs. Ralph. Garp looked at her; she didn't mind. "Don't tell your wife everything about me, OK? Don't make me out to be such a pig. Maybe you could draw a picture of me with a little sympathy."

"I have pretty good sympathy," Garp mumbled.

"You have a pretty good rod on, too," said Mrs. Ralph, staring at Garp's elevated track shorts. "You better not take that home." Garp said nothing; Garp the puritan felt he deserved to take a few punches. "Your wife really looks after you, doesn't she?" said Mrs. Ralph. "I guess you haven't alwaysbeen a good boy. You know what my husband would have called you?" she asked. "My husband would have called you pussy-whipped."

"Your husband must have been some asshole," Garp said. It felt good to get a punch in, even a bad punch, but he felt foolish that he had mistaken this woman for a slob.

Mrs. Ralph got off the bed and stood in front of Garp. Her tits touched his chest. Garp was anxious that his hard-on might poke her. "You'll be back," Mrs. Ralph said. "Want to bet on it?" Garp left her without a word.

He wasn't farther than two blocks from Mrs. Ralph's house—Duncan crammed down in the sleeping bag, wriggling over Garp's shoulder—when the squad car pulled to the curb and its police-blue light flickered over him where he stood caught: a furtive, half-naked kidnaper sneaking away with his bright bundle of stolen goods and stolen looks—and a stolen child.