Always that love-dove stuff, and they don't give...
Always that love-dove stuff, and they don't give a fug how they look Gallagher thought of Mary's mother, who was fat and very dowdy and he felt an inarticulate rage at a variety of things -- at the very fact that she was so immense, at the lack of money that had made him live in a tiny drab apartment, at all the breaks he had never got, because his wife in dying had caused him so much painNever get a goddam thingHe thought of Hennessey and his mouth tightenedGet your head blown offfor what, for what? He lit a cigarette, and tossed the match away, looking at where it fell in the sandGoddam Yids, fight a war for themHe thought of GoldsteinBunch of fug-ups, lose a goddam gun, won't even take a drink when it's freeHe lurched to his feet, and began to walk againA dull pain and hatred beat through his head On the beach giant kelp had washed ashore, and he walked down to the water's edge and looked at itIt was dark brown and very long, fendi spy bags perhaps fifty feet, and its dark rubbery skin glistened like snakes, and gave him a jolt of horrorHe was remembering the bodies in the cave"What drunken bastards we were," he saidHe was remorseful, or more correctly he generated remorse in himself because he felt he had done something badThe kelp frightened him -- he walked away After a few hundred yards, he sat down on the top of a dune which looked out to seaA storm was coming up, and he felt suddenly cold; a great cloud perhaps thirty miles long, shaped like a flat fish and very dark, had covered most of the skyA wind had sprung up and was lashing the sand in horizontal sheets along the beachGallagher sat there and waited for the rain that did not comeHe was feeling pleasurably moody, he was enjoying the barrenness and brooding of the scene, the remote froth of the waves against the shoreWithout quite realizing it, he began to draw a woman in the sandShe had great breasts and a chloe dior narrow waist and very wide full hipsHe looked at it soberly, and remembered that Mary was very ashamed of her tiny breastsShe had said once, "I wish they were big "Why?" "I know you like them better that way"Naw, they're just right the way they are An eddy of tenderness wound through himShe had been very small, and he thought of how she had seemed like a little girl to him at times, and how he had been amused at her seriousnessHe laughed softly, and then abruptly, with no defenses raised, he realized that she was utterly dead and he would never see her any moreThe knowledge flowed through him without resistance, like a torrent of water when a floodgate is loweredHe heard himself sob, and then was no longer conscious of the choking sounds of his anguishHe felt only a vast grief which mellowed him, dissolved the cysts of his bitterness and resentment and fear, and left him spent and weeping on the sandThe softer gentler cartier watches women memories of Mary were coming back to him; he recalled the sweltering liquid rhythms of their bodies against each other in heat and love, he felt dumbly the meaning of her smile when she handed him his lunch box as he went to work in the morning; he recalled the sad clinging tenderness they had felt for each other on the last night of his last furlough before he went overseasThey had gone on a moonlight excursion in Boston Harbor and he remembered with a pang how they had sat silent in the stern of the ship, holding each other's hands, and watching with a tender absorbed silence the turbulence of the wakeShe was a good girl, he said to himselfHe was thinking without quite phrasing it that no other person had ever understood him so fully, and he felt a secret relief as he realized that she had understood him and still loved himThis opened again the wound of all his loss, and he lay weeping bitterly for many minutes, unconscious of where bay bag chloe he was, feeling nothing but the complete sorrow in his bodyHe would think of the last letter every now and then, and this would send him off into a new spasm of griefHe must have cried for almost an hour At last he was spent, and he felt clean and gentleFor the first time he remembered that he had a child, and he wondered what it looked like and what its sex might beIt gave him a delicate joy for an instant, and he thought, If it's a boy, I'm gonna train him earlyHe'll be a pro baseball player, that's where the money isHis thoughts eddied away, and his mind became rested and emptyHe looked moodily at the dense jungle behind him, and wondered how far he would have to walk backThe wind was still sweeping along the beach, and his emotions became vague and shifted about like vaporsHe was sad again and thought of cold and lonely things like wind on a winter beach
It was a shame such a misfortune had to come to Gallagher, Roth omega olympic watch thought