Betty Blue Read online

  “My God,” he said. “What just happened over there?”

  First I took his hand off me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you go take a look?”

  He didn’t know if he should let me go or survey the disaster area-I could see he was really torn between the two. His eyes were wide, and he was biting his lip, incapable of making a decision. I thought he was going to start whimpering. Sometimes things happen in life that are so horrible you have every right to scream your rage to high heaven, to bewail your helplessness. I pitied the guy. Perhaps he had been born there, raised from childhood in the store itself, passed his whole life there. Perhaps it was all he knew of the world. If everything worked out he could stay there another twenty years.

  “Listen,” I said. “Take it easy. It’s not the end of the world. I saw it all-nothing’s broken. Some little old lady tipped the book stands over, but there’s no real damage. You’ve had a shock, that’s all…”

  He managed to give me a pale smile.

  “Yeah? Think that`s all?”

  I gave him a wink.

  “Sure. You’re fine.”

  I made my way to the cash registers. I paid the bill to a made-up girl who bit her nails. I smiled at her, waiting for the change. She didn’t react. I was the five-thousandth guy who’d smiled at her like that since the beginning of the week. I got my money and split. In spite of everything, the sun was still shining when I came out. It was a good thing, too. If there’s one thing I hate it’s being abandoned by everybody at the same time.

  Betty was waiting for me. She was sitting on the hood of the car like in the fifties. I couldn’t remember what shape car hoods must have been in during those years, but it served them right. And I didn’t care. I didn’t want her crumpling the metal. If we paid a little attention, we could make the car last till the year 2ooo. Fifties, my ass. I wasn’t about to start wearing pleated pants big enough for three people, with suspenders that make them ride up your nuts.

  “Been waiting long?” I asked.

  “No, just warming my buns.”

  “Try not to scratch the paint job getting down. The guy at the garage just polished it…”

  She said she wanted to drive. I gave her the keys and put the things in the trunk, reveling in the warm air, momentarily transfixed in space by the supernatural stillness of things-their intensity. I grabbed a package of spaghetti and heard it all break in my hand, like glass, but I didn’t kid myself-who ever heard of a guy getting touched by grace in a shopping center parking lot, especially with a girl drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and fifty-seven bottles of things left to unload from the shopping cart, beer included?

  I sat next to her and smiled. She jammed the motor a little before getting it started. I opened my window. I lit a cigarette. I put my glasses on. I leaned forward to turn on some music. We started down a long street, the sun slamming through the wind shield. Betty was like a golden statue with half-closed eyes. Guys were stopping on the sidewalk to watch us go by, cruising at twenty miles per hour. What did they know, the poor fools where were they at? I let the air run over my arm-it was almost warm. The radio played nontoxic music. It was all so rare that I took it for a sign. I thought that the moment had come at last, that we were going to make up with each other there in the car, and finish the trip laughing. At first I had actually thought there were birds in the shopping center, no fooling.

  I took some of her hair from the headrest and played with it.

  “It’d really be dumb if you kept pouting all day…”

  I’d already seen this scene in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers-the girl at the wheel was none other than one of those soulless creatures. Betty was wholly unmoved by the hand I was holding out to her, not budging one muscle of her face. I wished that someday some girl would explain it all to me-why women do that, and how they account for all the wasted time. It’s a little too easy to criticize people who ask only that they be left where they are-anybody can do that.

  “Hey, you hear me?”

  No response. I was wrong. I’d been fooled by a ray of sunshine and a light breeze. I’d been a chump. The last words fell from my mouth like stale candy. It must have been around four o’clock. There were no cars in front of us. I was feeling understandably edgy. After the business in the shopping center, was it too much to ask that she give it a rest? There was an intersection with a green light on the other side. It had been green for quite a while-an eternity, I’d say. By the time we went through, it was bright red.

  So she went through a red light without batting an eye. So I told her that if she kept that up we could walk home, and so that’s where we left off. I waited there resolutely. She got out of the car and held the door open as if it were me who had screwed up. “I am not getting back in this car,” she said.

  “No kidding,” I said.

  I slid over behind the wheel. She crossed the curb to the sidewalk. I put it in gear and took off up the street.

  After a few minutes, I realized I was in no hurry. I made a detour over to the garage. The guy was sitting at his desk with his legs crossed, hidden behind a newspaper. I knew him, he owned the place. It was he who had sold me the Mercedes. It was nice out, it smelled like spring. There was an open pack of gum on his desk-a brand I liked.

  “Hello,” I said. “Could you check the oil, when you have a minute…?”

  I was trying to read the headlines upside down, when the newspaper crumpled, and suddenly there was his fat head. His head was much bigger than normal-half again as big, you get the picture. I wondered where he went to buy glasses.

  “Jesus Christ… WHY???” he said.

  “Well, don’t want to get low…”

  “But this is the fifth time you’ve been here in the last few days, and every time we check it it’s full-I’m not joking, you know-it’s not down one drop. Now are you going to come here every day and drive me nuts? I told you, the car does not use any oil, none…”

  “Okay, this’ll be the last time. But I want to make sure,” I said. “Listen, understand something: selling cars like this at prices like that is not what’s going to set me up for life. I have more important things to do. You follow?”

  I threw him a bone:

  “Okay, I’ll come back and get it changed at fifteen hundred,” I said. He sighed, the asshole. What could I do if the world worked like that? You don’t lose a drop for a few days, then one morning the car hemorrhages all over the street. He called over to a bright looking guy with a sprinkling can.

  “Hey, you. Drop that and go check the oil in the Mercedes.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Don’t worry, the level’s line, but the customer isn’t. Go look at it carefully. Check it out in full sunlight. Wipe it off and put it in again, and make absolutely sure that the level is up there between the two little marks. Make sure that you both agree before you put the thing back in.”

  “Thanks. I’ll feel better,” I said. “Mind if I take a piece of gum?”

  I went out to the car with the junior mechanic to open the hood. I showed him where the gauge was.

  “This is the car of my dreams,” he said. “The boss doesn’t understand.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Never trust anybody over forty.”

  A little way up the road, I stopped for a drink. As I was getting ready to pay, the article about Betty and the paint-bombs fell out of my wallet. I asked the bartender for another drink. Later, I stopped in front of a newsstand. I looked at all the headlines, one by one. I was drunk. I bought some rag that was about cooking, and another one that wasn’t.

  In my travels I’d gotten far away from the house. I found myself in a part of town I didn’t know. I drove slowly. I was almost at the edge of town when I realized that the sun was setting. I started home calmly. Night had one foot on the ground by the time I pulled up in front of the pianos. It had fallen suddenly. It was an eerie night-a night I wasn’t going to forget.

  It was si
mple. When I walked in she was there in front of the TV, eating a bowl of cereal, with a cigarette in her hand. It smelled of tobacco. It smelled of sulfur.

  There were three obligatory-girls-with-feathers dancing on TV, and a guy braying into a microphone-something exotic and mushy. I noted how it did not at all go with the tension that reigned in the room. I was not, after all, strolling along a deserted beach in the third world, with miles of fine sand on either side of a hotel terrace, and a bartender making me a special cocktail with curaçao in the shade. No, I was merely on the second floor of a house, with a girl who had swallowed fire, and it was night. Things took a turn for the worse right away. All I did was go into the kitchen, lowering the sound on the television on my way. I had barely opened the refrigerator when the thing started booming.

  After that it was the usual story-nothing too original this time. I drank my beer and threw the can hard into the wastebasket to set the mood. Who would be crazy enough to think you can live with a girl like that without incident? Who’d want to deny that such things are necessary?

  We had already attained an honorable state-a few lingering lightning bolts in our eyes, the kitchen door swinging open and slamming shut-and for my part I would have been happy to stop there. My comebacks were losing their punch, and the temperature was stabilizing. I was ready to settle for a tie game, if it would keep us from having to go into extra innings.

  I have never been able to explain certain of the things she did. I have never understood them either, thus making it impossible for me to avoid them. So there I was, panting in the corner, hoping to get saved by the bell, when she looked over at me and made a fist. It startled me. We’d never really hit each other. Since I was at least five yards away from her I didn’t panic. I felt like a native in the jungle, wondering what that thing is that the white hunter is aiming at him. This fist of hers-first she raised it up toward her mouth as if she were going to kiss it, then an instant later she put it through the kitchen window. For a split second I thought I heard the window scream.

  The blood came spurting out of her arm, as if she’d just crushed a bunch of strawberries in her hand. I don’t like to say it, but I suddenly lost my nerve. A cold sweat squeezed my head like a tourniquet. I heard a whistling in my ears. Then she started laughing. She made such an odd face that for a moment I didn’t recognize her. She reminded me of an angel of darkness.

  I ran to her like an angel of light, grabbing her arm with the same disgust I’d feel grabbing a rattlesnake. Her laughter hurt my ears, and she kept pounding me in the back, but somehow I managed to examine her wounds.

  “Jesus Christ. You fucking idiot-you’re lucky, you know…” I said.

  I took her into the bathroom and ran water over her arm. Now I was getting hot. I started to feel the punches she was giving me. I could no longer tell if she was laughing or crying. Whatever it was, she was really letting loose on my back. I had to hold her down with all my strength to wash her hand off. Just as I was getting the bandages out, she grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head back. I screamed. I’m not like some people--it hurts like hell when someone pulls my hair, especially when they go at it full throttle. I almost started crying. I sent my elbow backward. I hit something. She let go.

  When I turned around, I saw her nose was bleeding.

  “Shit, I don’t believe it…” I moaned.

  Still, all in all it had calmed her down. I was just about able to put her bandages on in peace, except for the bottle of Mercurochrome she spilled all over in a last spasm. I didn’t have time to get my foot out of the way. The night before, I had put a coat of white polish on my shoes. Now one of them was bright red, which made the other one look stunningly white-it was quite a startling effect. Her hand was still bleeding, but her nose was better. She whimpered. I didn’t feel like comforting her. What I wanted to do was grab her and shake her, and make her apologize for what she’d done to her hand. I was prepared just to let her cry for days on end if it came down to it.

  I wrapped the bandage one more time around her hand to finish up and gave her a Kleenex for her nose, without saying a word. Then I went into the kitchen to clean up the broken glass. Or more accurately, I lit a cigarette and stood there looking at the broken glass, twinkling on the tile like a school of flying fish. A cold draft came in through the window. I shivered. I was wondering about the best way to go about it-was it worth the effort to get out the vacuum cleaner or should I just use a broom and dustpan?-when I heard the downstairs door slam. I put everything on hold. One second later a man appeared on the street, foaming at the mouth, with one red shoe on his foot.

  She had a good fifty-yard head start. I let out a long howl that propelled me like a jet, and I caught up fast. I could see her little ass dancing in her jeans, her hair flying sideways as she went.

  We went across the neighborhood like two shooting stars. I gained ground inch by inch-she took it with ease. Under any other circumstances I’d have taken my hat off to her. We were puffing along like locomotives. The streets were practically deserted-clouds of weed-scented fog coming down here and there-but I wasn’t there to admire the scenery. I was engaged in hot pursuit with fire in my soul, wild race-to-the-finish music on the soundtrack. I called out to her a few times, then decided to save my breath. A few pedestrians turned to watch us. Two girls yelled out some bullshit, cheering Betty on. Their voices carried all the way around the corner. I pitied the next defenseless dude who crossed their path.

  I got to within three or four yards of her, the sweet smell of victory whistling in my ears. Dig in, I said to myself, just hang in there, champ, it’s almost in the bag… There’s the finish line… I felt such exhilaration that I must have sent off vibes. She must have gotten them loud and clear too, because-and I don’t know how she did this-I suddenly found myself with a garbage can between my legs. I went flying over it and made a crash landing on the other side, in a blaze of glory.

  I got back up as soon as I could. She’d gained at least thirty yards on me. My lungs burned when I breathed, I started running again. That’s what I was there for-I had to catch that girl no matter what. Had she known my determination, she would have hung it up, cried uncle. She would have known that a little garbage can wasn’t enough to stop me. She would have faced the music.

  My knee hurt. It had happened when I fell. She was slowing down, though, and I wasn’t that far behind. Without knowing it, we’d covered quite a bit of ground. We found ourselves in a sort of industrial park, with a lot of warehouses and railroad tracks running down the middle. It was not, however, one of those abandoned areas full of savage beauty-one of those places covered with rust and overgrown weeds, bathed in the supernatural light of moonbeams. It was the opposite of that. All the buildings were new, and there was fresh asphalt all around. I don’t know who paid the electric bill around there, but it was as bright as day.

  Betty rounded the corner of a blue-and-pink warehouse. It was a sort of tender pink. She wasn’t really running anymore. My knee was as swollen as a little pumpkin. I dragged my leg and gritted my teeth, my breath short and my brain hyperventilated. What gave me courage was to see her finally out of energy. She was only a little ways ahead of me, and the warehouse, which seemed endless, served as a crutch for her-she had to lean on the wall as she went. I was starting to get cold now. All my clothes were drenched with sweat, and I suddenly felt the winter night get me in a stranglehold from head to foot. I looked down at my measly sweater and shivered.

  When I looked up, I saw that she’d stopped. I didn’t take advantage of the situation by jumping on her, I just started walking normally-you might even say slowly. I preferred to wait till she’d finished vomiting. There’s nothing worse than throwing up when you’re out of breath-it just about strangles you.

  As for me, my blue jeans were blown up like a sausage around my knee. We were getting down to the dregs now, our own little museum of horrors, like two crippled loons thrown out of the last open bar. The light was so harsh that it fel
t like we were being filmed-a documentary on married life. I waited till after her last heave to speak.

  “Hey, we’re going to freeze to death,” I said.

  I could hardly see her-her face was covered by her hair. I wasn’t kidding, either-it was all I could do to keep my teeth from chattering. I felt like the guy who takes one last look at the sunset before sinking away forever into a snowdrift.

  Before we turned completely blue I decided to grab her by the arm. She pushed me away. I had had it by then, however. The drama had begun early that morning and it was now the middle of the night and winter. I felt that I had already paid top dollar for the day. I was not going to spend one more penny. I grabbed her by the collar. Her arm had not even made it back to her side yet. I slammed her against the side of the warehouse, sniffling through my runny nose.

  “Having style means knowing when you’re going too far,” I said.

  The night had made me mean. Instead of listening to me, she started flailing, but I held her flat against the corrugated metal-I no longer felt my strength. I couldn’t have let go of her if I’d wanted to. Something in her must have understood this; she started screaming and pounding the wall. The warehouse rang like the bells at the gates of Hell.

  It wasted me to see her like that-mouth twisted, staring me down as if I were a perfect stranger. I couldn’t take that very long-her rage, her yelling, how she had me trapped there, little girl wild with anger, claws out. I slapped her across the face to bring her back down to earth. I didn’t like doing it, but I slapped her with all my might, in a kind of mystic frenzy, as if trying to chase a demon out of her.

  Just then a police car pulled up, like a flying saucer. I let go of Betty. She slipped on her heels. They opened their doors. The car sent off blue light-beams, like a child’s toy. One cop did a forward roll out onto the ground, ending up on his feet, aiming something at me. An older one got out normally, on the other side. He had a long billy club in his hand.