“When will you be done?”
“Oh, soon, soon! It’s all up here.” Truman tapped his now-bald head, wrung his fat little hands dripping with rings, twisted up his baby-soft lips in a smirk, shifted his caftan-clad lard about in the chair. “I’ve spent years observing this world. Years!”
Curled up in an overstuffed armchair, an empty ebony cigarette holder in her hand, Babe eyed Truman on the television screen. Her hands itched to fill the holder with a cigarette and light up, but she swallowed, breathed as deeply as she could, and took a sip of water, chewing resolutely on an ice cube instead.
When she set the crystal glass back down on its coaster, however, she missed; the glass hit the tabletop with a loud crack, and water spilled everywhere. Babe gasped, and let out a small cry.
“What? What is it, Babe?” Instantly Bill was by her side, kneeling on the floor, looking up into her face. She grimaced, and laughed.
“Nothing, I just made a little mess, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Bill looked relieved; he ran his hand through his very thin, very silver hair, and exhaled. “I thought—I thought, well, never mind. I’ll get a towel.” He turned to see what was on the television. “Truman? What’s he up to tonight?”
“Oh, the same thing, I’m afraid. He’s wasting his talent, still talking about that book of his. Bill, do you think he’s written a single word of it?”
“No, I don’t. He talks a good game, but he lacks discipline. He didn’t used to. It’s really a damn shame.”
“Yes, it is.” Babe turned back to gaze at the television screen; now Truman was repeating an oft-told story, one that she’d laughed at many times, along with all her friends. “Well,” he drawled, his voice even higher, more exaggeratedly fey; she’d noticed this lately, how he seemed intent on becoming a caricature comprised of his most studiously affected elements, the lisp, the drawl, the limp wrists. Back when she first met him, these had simply been part of a more sharply etched, richly detailed picture. Now he was a walking—mincing—Hirschfeld cartoon.
“Well,” he continued, shifting in his chair on the garishly loud Tonight Show set, looking up at the ceiling, as he always did whenever he was about to “tell a whopper,” as he so endearingly put it. “I was at this restaurant, minding my own business, when a woman came over and asked me for my autograph. I said of course, but what did she want me to sign? She proceeded to expose her breasts—” And here Truman paused, rolled his eyes, and allowed Johnny Carson to lead the audience in knowing laughter.
“I know! Anyway, I signed it. I mean, why not?” More laughter. “But then her husband, who was fuming, came over, and he, well—he whipped out his thing, and said, ‘Sign this!’ And I looked down, and said, ‘Well, I don’t see how, but maybe I can initial it.’?”
The audience was rolling in the aisles, Johnny Carson was beet red, laughing so hard there were tears in his eyes.
Babe and Bill exchanged a look.
“He told it better the first time I heard it,” Bill said.
“It’s so crude.” Babe shook her head, switching off the television with the remote. “I don’t know why he has to be so vulgar.”
“He’s always been, to a certain extent. Except around you.”
“Yes, but there was a line he wouldn’t cross. Lately, however—oh, those men!” Babe shuddered, thinking of the parade of truck drivers, bankers, and air-conditioning repairmen he brought to Kiluna, uninvited, just the way he used to bring Jack. But Jack, despite his gruffness, was a decent man, interesting, and so obviously in love with Truman. These men, this latest, particularly, John O’Shea—actually a banker! A middle-class banker who berated Truman, put him down, told anyone who would listen how lousy he was in bed—Babe simply didn’t know what to think, what to do. She couldn’t very well ask them to leave, so she did what she always did. She smiled, was polite, interested, fed them, made sure they were well taken care of under her roof. And then let Truman cry on her shoulder when they left, his heart broken every single day, every single minute, it seemed. Dan had been mean to him, called him a fag, left to go back to some horrid woman. Bob had told him he was awful in bed. John had told him he was a hack.
“I don’t know what to do for him,” she whispered. She glanced at the table next to her, cluttered with amber prescription bottles, and sighed. “If something happens to me, who will take care of Truman?”