Tom didn’t see Dix come in. He had no idea anyone else was there until Dix dropped himself into the chair on the opposite side of the desk, rattling everything on the desk with the force of his resignation.
“Jesus, Dix …” Tom studied his expression. It wasn’t a “back three months from France and still can’t find a damn job” face or a “my old man is still a bastard” face, or even a “someone from our old platoon died” face. Someone or something was dead, though. They were only back from the war for three months. You don’t forget that expression in three months or even three years. They didn’t see as much death in the AEF Signal Corps as the regular infantry, but they saw their share.
When Dix reached into his suit coat and pulled out a pint bottle, Tom knew before it had reached Dix’s lips what this was about, or at least who it was about. “So – what is she doing now?”
“It’s what she’s saying.”
“And what’s that, pal?”
“She’s saying I’ve changed, Tom. I’m not the man she married, or the man she thought she married. Something happened to me ‘over there’ and she doesn’t know who I am anymore. She keeps asking me about “shell-shock. She acts like it was handed out in our rations like cigarettes.”
“So, she says something must've happened …?”
“Yeah, Maybe some terrible telegraph-related catastrophe that scarred me forever, and left me an alien in her eyes.”
“Yeah, that happens. Signal corps can be murder, you know. That’s why guys were always fighting to get out of it and into the trenches.”
“So I’m crippled, shell-shocked … I guess …” Dix’s hands flew out wide in sheer astonishment. Then, having nothing else to do, they landed back on Dix’s thighs, having nothing more useful to do or insightful to express.
“You’ve heard that bunkum from her before, Dix.”
“I have.”
“And it’s different now because …?”
“Phil Cicero.”
“That little redhead 4F prick who does piano lessons out in Poly, and the church organ on Sundays? That jerk was a problem from the get-go.”
In a lilt intended to echo Rachel’s, Dix answered, “You don’t understand him, Dixon. He’s a piano virtuoso. He has the soul of a poet.” He underscored the tribute by uncapping his bottle again, lifting it high, and taking another shot. “I’ll have you know …”
“What?”
“I forget. She’s ‘had me know’ a lot of shit about him.”
”Uh-huh”
“Some horse shit about how amazing he is, how much promise he has and how close he is to realizing it, if only someone would help him.”
“Yeah. So she’s screwing him?”
“Their friendship is too pure for that. That’s what she says. And he’s probably so doped up on reefer all the time that he couldn’t get it up with the help of a Corps of Engineers crew. That’s what I says.”
“So he’s pumping the ol' church organ and not her, huh? I can see why the little lady would be frustrated with old Dusty Rusty.”
The bottle emerged once again. Dix shook it, finding it lacking in weight and sensual splashes. He shook it a second time, up by his ear this time, just to be sure. He carefully stood it upright on Tom’s desk, and it very predictably fell over.
Without taking his eyes off his friend, Tom hauled a desk drawer open. He scooped up a clear bottle and lofted it across his blotter, dropping it neatly into the empty spot that Dix’s own bottle had just tumbled from.
It was gin – cheap gin at that, but Dix had left the point of caring behind about six ounces ago. He poured a three-count into his upturned mouth, then set the bottle gingerly back where it came. It proved more stable than his own bottle.
They sat there for a time, saying nothing.
“So, if he’s so great, Dix, why can’t he hold down a job?”
“Because he’s an addled, unstable, mama’s boy? And by that, I mean he’s sad and misunderstood and just needs a little support, like artists do. I hear tell from other people, though, that he hears voices telling him bad things to do.”
“She still supporting him on your dime?”
“She says she’s not … but I could be blind at this point. If she is, she’s pretty damn sneaky. I haven’t noticed anything missing from the bank account lately.”
Tom shrugged. “Guess she’d have to be pretty sneaky …”
Dix nodded.
“So she hasn’t screwed him yet.” Tom declaimed, like a lawyer driving his point home to the jury, eyes drilling into his listener. It wasn’t a question but a challenge – tell me I’m right, if you genuinely believe.
“Maybe not with her body. She says there’s something pure in him that she wants to protect. Something pure and innocent and good like ~”
“~ you before the war …”
Dix’s eyes tracked toward Tom’s on a wobbly trajectory. When they met, his expression was clear – it no longer mattered. Even if her body hadn’t yet screwed Phil, every other part of her had.
“Uh, yeah – guess so – me before …” He said it, but neither of them meant it. He was a good guy – a standup guy – but not even Rachel would have confused him with someone pure and innocent before the war or after. Hell, he was pretty sure he hadn’t been pure and innocent since fifth or sixth grade.
“Hey, Dix, you remember that time in the school cafeteria when you and Mary Ellen got caught by that old lunchwoman …?”
Alright, so maybe it was fourth grade that he hadn’t been innocent since. All he was doing was trying to get a peek at Mary Ellen’s panties, but that was as good as whoring to the lunch lady, who was deaconess in the Eighth Avenue Missionary Holiness Temple. She about had an apoplectic fit and called in everyone from the Principal and Vice Principal to both of their parents and gave a full thirty minute accounting of their thirty second adventure.
“So, what’s your plan here, Dix?”
“When I’m very sure I’ve had enough to drink – either this month or the next, I’m going to sue for divorce, if she doesn’t beat me to it. She might. She’s sober as a judge. More sober, actually.”
“You’d better beat her to it, brother, whether you’re sobered up enough by then or not. She didn’t bring down this bear without already knowing how to skin and dress him. You’ve got to hit her and her little boyfriend with ‘alienation of affection’ or you’ll be paying her for the rest of your life.”
Dix knew Tom was right. Rachel wasn’t spectacularly diabolical – or at least hadn’t been particularly so in the past, but she’d never been a woman to leave things to chance either. Even now, with a pint in him, he realized that all of this meant that she already had her own steps unfolding and he’d be a fool to think he wasn’t already behind the cue ball. No telling how much groundwork she’d already laid, but it was probably substantial.
That thought sobered him as much as anything could. She had told him specifically and repeatedly that “this all developed in the weeks since you came back” but he should have realized the words were lies even as they were gliding off her tongue. Some portion might only be weeks old, but her drift started on this side of the Atlantic, before the war. Once it took root, it festered and fermented in the free time she’d enjoyed in his absence. What he’d taken for shyness due to their separation was really a growing secretiveness on her part.
From across the Atlantic, he’d asked her several times in letters if anything was wrong, and her slow replies always included words like “let’s not deal with it now” and “we’ll sort it all out when you’re finally home.” It was supposed to make him feel reassure, but the long-shadowed truth was that it she was just stalling until she could finally apply her long-hatching solution to the problem of him.
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