“I suppose Harry could,” Wenzel said. “But Harry didn’t need to. Agnes was doing everything anybody needed to do. She had him sucked up against her like he was a fifty-dollar bill.”
So Lyman must have felt that he had arrived in heaven. He was on the dance floor at the Holt Tavern with his face hidden in Agnes Wilson’s pink hair. Her full, ripe body was pressing him all along his own, and he had dispensed with holding her hand. Both of his middle-aged bachelor arms were wrapped around her so that his white Sunday shirt cuffs showed bright against the black of her waitress dress where his hands rode snug above her heavy buttocks. When the dance band started up another song Agnes would shuffle Lyman around a little bit on the dance floor, but between songs they just stood there, waiting, not moving at all, while Lyman maintained the same clenching hold on her, like he didn’t dare let go.
“Like they was two dogs that was locked,” Wenzel said. “You should of saw it.”
“How long did it go on?” my dad said.
“I wasn’t counting the dances,” Wenzel said. “And I don’t guess Lyman was neither. He was too satisfied to do something like count.”
But it must have gone on long enough that an hour or two passed. Agnes Wilson didn’t seem to mind it, though. Occasionally she patted him on the head or tickled a finger in his ear, and now and then she winked at the other people in the tavern, who didn’t seem to mind it either; they were all going up to the bar to get their own drinks. They were slapping one another on the back and congratulating themselves as if they were all in attendance at some significant event. I suppose it was an event too: Lyman Goodnough was enjoying himself.
“Until, bang,” Wenzel said. “All in a sudden, he’s gone. He’s took off.”
“Wait a minute,” my dad said. “You mean he got bored with that too? That don’t leave him much to graze on. He’s already used up beer and poker and women.”
“No,” Wenzel said. “No, I don’t guess you could say bored exactly. He just stopped squeezing Agnes and left.”
“How come?”
“That’s what we wanted to know,” Wenzel said.
So after Lyman took off, Wenzel told us that Harry Barnes called Agnes over to their booth where, between poker hands, they had been watching it all. Agnes came over and leaned against the table. She held the bar tray behind her and pushed her ample front out towards the men in the booth.
“What become of your boyfriend?” Harry said.
“Ain’t he cute?” Agnes said.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “He’s cute. But what happened to him?”
“Darned if I know,” Agnes said. “All I know is, after that last song he asks me what the time is, and I tell him, ‘Honey, it’s early yet. Only a quarter of eleven.’ And then he says to me, ‘What time do you lock up?’ And I say, ‘Not till midnight, honey. We got lots of time left.’ And then he says something strange, he says, ‘No, we don’t. I can’t wait no longer.’”
“And that’s when he took off?” Harry said.
“That’s it,” Agnes said. “Right then he left, without so much as good-bye or thank you, kindly.”
“Well,” Harry said. “I wouldn’t take it too personal. You was doing everything you could.”
“I know it,” Agnes said. “But wasn’t he cute?”
Then Wenzel Gerdts stopped talking. He removed the tobacco from his cheek and examined it as if there was something there that might explain Lyman’s leaving. The wad of Red Man was white and stringy looking, used up. He tossed it into the gutter, where it sopped up the brown puddle like a sponge. Across the street I could see my mother come out of a store with a hatbox under her arm.
“So you don’t know why he left so sudden,” my dad said.