Candy from a baby

RICHARD SHERMAN

A short story proving once again the truth of the ancient adage that that which comes too easy is not much fun

At first he wasn't going, and then two hours before the boat sailed Brenda phoned him from a drug store booth and said, "I think maybe you'd better come down after all. He'll think it sort of funny if you don't." And so he bad said be would, and here he was in the long, echoing pier, paying bis dime to the Seamen's Fund and being jostled by honeymooners and honeymooners' friends and fat, swarthy ladies crying, '"Jul-ya! In the cabin! In-thecab-in!"

He had seen at least five other people olT on this same boat before, and had traveled on it once himself, so he bad no difficulty in locating the stateroom, a double one on C Deck. Even before he turned down the little corridor leading to it, he heard Hank's rumbling laugh and Brenda's husky voice saying a sentence that ended with . . and so what could I do?" There were other voices, too: apparently it was a party. But for him there was only one voice.

When be entered, stumbling a little on the raised sill, he was careful to look at each of the four people for an equal fraction of a second, and then to turn his eyes past Brenda back to Hank. ''1 bought I'd add my farewell, too," be said. "You lucky stiff." That was the right lone: you lucky stiff, you big bum, you mooching lowlife.

"Hi, Carey, old boy, old boy! (How could she stand it, that eternal joviality? How had he himself stood it for so many years?) "Have a drink. Have two drinks.

While Hank officiated with the tumblers and the whisky, he turned to greet the others. Brenda first, of course, since she was as near a hostess as there was: "Hello, Brenda. Why aren't you going on this junket, too?

She smiled from her position on the bed, seated between a man and a woman he didn't know. "No wives allowed, she said. "That is, not according to the company budget. And of course he wouldn' t take me if he had to pay my passage himself."

Hank turned, bottle poised over glass. "Why. I would too. I asked her. In fact I begged her. And she said she wouldn't come.

Brenda laughed. "Of course you did, honey. Then she added, gravely, "But really, it wouldn't be worth it. You see, I've been to Bermuda before, but Hank hasn't. She nodded to her right. "Do You know Mrs. Langwell? And to her left. "And Mr. Langwell. Mr. Rumford—Mr. Langwell s going on the trip too. As her head swerved her eyes said, "I love you. I told you the chance would come if we waited.

"My best friend," said Hank to Mr. Langwell, as he handed Carey a drink. "A good-for-nothing, but my best friend. Old college chum and all that. '

Mr. Langwell, a plump little man, began to sing in a wavering tenor: "Bulldog, bulldog—wow, wow, wow." His wife, who apparently was not drinking, laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Howard," she said, between her teeth. "Please." Then she looked brightly at Carey. "Is that so?" she said. "Well, well. I presume you wish you were sailing too, Mr. Rumford."

"Yes, indeed I do." He raised his glass. "To a good voyage, Hank."

"Bong vwoyawge, as they say, said Hank.

Everyone drank, except Mrs. Langwell. He noticed that before Brenda lifted the tumbler to her lips she tipped it slightly in his direction.

The liquor was smooth and strong, and after the second swallow, as always, his senses sharpened and he saw objects and people and his own thoughts more clearly. He saw the comfortable, feminine stateroom, with its shining metal and its frilly curtains and its two port holes. He saw Hank, rangy and tall and red-faced; Mr. Langwell, sliding down the slope of an intoxication that had probably been more enjoyable an hour ago than it was now; his wife, inwardly fuming and outwardly pleasant, tolerance radiating from her set smile in waves. He saw Brenda.

And his own mind. How could he have known her a whole year without thinking of her as he thought of her now7? Why was it only a month ago that he had appreciated what she was and what she could mean to him.

A brass voice sounded in the distance: "All ashore that's going ashore! All ashore

"Well. Mrs. Langwell rose hurriedly. "I imagine we d better be going, hadn't we?"

Brenda remained where she was. "Not yet, she said. "Not for hours yet. They just do that to frighten people.

Hank was pouring himself another drink, and he refilled Carey's empty glass too. Hank always drank a lot, and seldom showed it. That was one of the things Brenda said she could not endure in him, his reaction toward the effects of liquor. "He might as well never drink anything but water," she had said; "for all that Rotarianism in him he's as cold as an iceberg, really. " What she had meant, and what he knew she had meant, was, "Now you—you're different." And she was different too. For it had taken alcohol to ignite the flame that now burned brightly within them; though no alcohol was required to keep it burning.

"You d better run in and see Brenda now and then," said Hank. "She'll be lonely. If she's lonely enough, maybe she'll ask you up to dinner. Huh, Brenda?"

Suddenly a whistle wiped out all other noises, and the ship began to vibrate. Mrs. Langwell, who had been fidgeting, leaped to her feet. "Oh, dear. I know they're going to sail without my getting off. Howard Howard, come on."

Swaying, Howard stood up. "Bulldog, bulldog, wow, wow—"

His wife grasped his arm firmly, propelling him toward the door.

"Wow, ' said Hank.

There was the sound of shuffling feet in the outer corridor, a slow tide of on pressing cattle. For a moment Mrs. Langwell was silhouetted against the door frame, and then, still clutching her husband, she turned. "Well, I'm afraid I' ll have to be leaving," she said. "Goodbye, all. Have a nice time, Mr. Grier, and"—she hesitated for a moment before taking the leap "please try to see that Howard doesn't take more than is good for him. You know, he has a weak heart." She disappeared, and Howard with her.

"I don't envy you, Hank," said Brenda. "He'll probably die on your hands, and she'll sue you.

Then they were left alone, the three of them. Brenda began to gather up her things —coat, gloves, purse—and the men set down their empty glasses. Suddenly Hank looked around the cabin. "Golly, I wish you two were going with me," he said. "Couldn' t we have fun down there together? Boy, what a time we' d have!"

There was an awkward pause, which Brenda broke, as an apple is broken, neatly, by saying, "Come, come, Rumford. Let's get started."

Carey walked ahead, nosing a path through the laughing, excited, stair-climbing crowds. Behind him, when he pivoted at the landing, he saw that Hank's arm was around Brenda's waist. For weeks now, such manifestations of possessiveness had infuriated and sickened him, even as he had thought, with a tight feeling of superiority, "Just wait, my friend, my fine, stupid friend. Just wait." Yet at present he felt nothing.

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The long, wide deck was a sea of bobbing hats with hands upthrust like spears from a marching army. Hank drew them to one side and said, "Let's say goodbye here. We'd suffocate in that mob." He offered his palm— friendly, innocent palm — to Carey. "Now remember," he said, "don't let Brenda get lonesome." He laughed; the hearty, full laugh of a thirty-two-year-old child. "It isn't every man I'd trust with her, but I guess I'll trust you. Though God knows why."

Quickly Brenda tendered her lips. "Bye, Hank," she said. "Enjoy yourself."

Then Hank kissed her: once, lightly. She started to turn, and he drew her to him again. "Wait a minute," he said. "Wait a minute. I'd barely got under way."

"We've got to go, Hank," she said. "They're about to pull up the gangplank."

His answer was another kiss, a longer one. Carey saw her fingers go taut against the back of the tweed coat, and stay taut until the embrace ended. He himself turned away, but not before he heard Hank's voice, low and intimate with all the gusto and self-assurance and joviality gone out of it, say:

"I'll think of you every day. Every night."

They were almost the last ones down the gangplank. At the foot of it, Carey turned toward the pier exit, but Brenda said, "No, idiot, we've got to wait and wave good-bye." Eventually they squeezed themselves a place at the picket railing, and. looking up. discarding face after face, saw Hank smiling and pantomiming a boxer's handclasp. Brenda smiled back, and fluttered her handkerchief. "1 should feel like Mrs. Bovary," she said, "but instead I feel like Mrs. Bluebeard. Anything that makes you so happy can't be very wrong, can it?"

He shook his head. "I guess not."

The whistle blew again, making the whole pier tremble, and with a great groaning the ship began to draw away from the dock, while the band played and the people shouted unintelligible messages and the sweating stevedores wearily shoved their empty trucks against the farther wall. When Hank's face had slid from view, they turned toward the other end of the pier. In silence they walked its whole length, walked down the stairs, and out to a waiting cab. After Brenda had got in, Carey stood by the running board and gave the driver the address. Then he lifted his hat to Brenda. "Goodbye," be said.

She leaned forward on the seat. "Goodbye? Where're you going?"

"Home," he said.

There was a silence, and then he saw her face freeze. "Oh," she said. "Very well."

The cars behind started to honk, and the driver shifted a gear. Carey's hand grasped the door handle.

"It isn't wrong if it makes you happy," he said. "But I've just discovered that it doesn't make me happy. It's too easy. Don't you see?"

He could tell by her face that she didn't see. "I still want you as much as I ever did, but—"

"Close the door," she said.

"I've not only got to have something to fight for—I have to have someone to fight with."

"Please close the door."