Jernigan by David Gates Page A

I just raised the beer can and lowered it, as if crossing myself. Then, after a couple of seconds, I went ahead and took a belt, as if someone had changed the subject.
    But we were still on the subject, apparently.
    “Actually, Danny didn’t need to tell me you were nice,” said Martha Peretsky. “He’s so nice himself, I knew that he had to have been raised by—” and here she hesitated, for reasons she must have hoped weren’t obvious. “I mean, a boy that nice, his father had to be nice too.”
    To the human intellect , I felt like saying. And its capacity to reason shit out . “Yeah, I’m proud of Danny,” I said, looking over to make sure I could see my car from here. I was slow today, boy: how could it have taken me this long to see that she was absolutely shitfaced and trying to keep it together?
    “That’s what I mean,” she said.
    “To meaning,” I said, and took another good belt. So why not get shitfaced myself?
    She narrowed her eyes. “You’re very bright,” she said. “I am not doing a very good job of establishing that I’m bright too.”
    I tried to think what to say. Finally I went with, “Is that important?”
    “If we’re going to be friends , yes, I think so,” she said. “I would like very much to be friends with you. Oh God am I losing it. Martha ma chère , why don’t you just taisez-vous for a change, n’est-ce pas?” She shook her head; her straight blond bangs, in accordance with some principle of physics, wagged in the opposite direction from the wayher head was going. I got interested in the way that looked. To avoid, I suppose, having to pay attention to the chatter.
    “Sorry,” she said. “Sorry sorry sorry. See, I have to tell you. Or else you are going to think the absolute worst of me. Clarissa gave me this pill. Because I was getting nervous? With people coming over? And she warned me not to drink on top of it and I’m like give me a break here. What is a fourteen-year-old going to give you that you couldn’t have a beer with?” She shook her head. “Whew.”
    “How long ago did you take it?”
    She shook her head again. “Before everybody show up. Show-da up. Couple hours ago?”
    “Well look,” I said, “just don’t have anything more to drink and I’m sure it’ll wear off pretty soon.” As if I had any idea what the hell her kid had given her. “You like to go for a walk?” I said. “Walk it off a little?”
    “Feel like lying down,” she said. “So maybe I should walk. Boy oh boy oh boy.” I stood up, she raised her hand like a student who has the answer, and I pulled her to her feet and we walked. The way we worked it out about the hands made me think there were possibilities: each kept holding the other’s hand for longer than necessary, then each let go as if we’d counted one two three. This Martha Peretsky must be very wise in the body, I thought, if she could manage this while drunk and stoned on what was obviously some powerful downer. I felt a jolt of heat to the penis. Machine that I was.
    We went through the gate and up the street, avoiding potholes as if they were puddles. Which of course they must be when it rained. “I wonder are there any frogs,” I said, which couldn’t have made much sense to her.
    “Mmm,” she said.
    We got as far as her nearest neighbor’s house, a gabled box, probably early ’60s, with windows wider than they were tall. Like mine. “Ugly,” I said. I was criticizing her neighborhood.
    “Ugly people live there,” she said. Then she said, “I’m deserting my guests.”
    “Not your favorite guest,” I said, old smoothie. I sort of remembered now how you did this.
    “You,” she said. She smiled a pacific smile and took my arm. I considered considering where this was all heading, but found I didn’t feel like considering. On one beer? I must have wanted not to feel like considering.
    “This is a little crazy,” she said. “What are we doing?”
    “Taking you for a walk,” I said.