"You‘re Holly‘s father ."
He blinked, he frowned. "Her name‘s not Holly. She was a Lulamae Barnes. Was," he said, shifting the toothpick in his mouth, "till she married me. I‘m her husband. Doc Golightly. I‘m a horse doctor, animal man. Do some farming, too. Near Tulip, Texas. Son, why are you laughin‘?"
It wasn‘t real laughter: it was nerves. I took a swallow of water and choked; he pounded me on the back. "This here‘s no humorous matter, son. I‘m a tired man. I‘ve been five years lookin‘ for my woman. Soon as I got that letter from Fred, saying where she was, I bought myself a ticket on the Greyhound. Lulamae belongs home with her husband and her churren." (78/130p. Penguin Classic, 2022) - P78
"Plain broke our hearts when she ran off like she done," the horse doctor repeated. "She had no cause. All the housework was done by her daughters. Lulamae could just take it easy: fuss in front of mirrors and wash her hair. Our own cows, our own garden, chickens, pigs: son, that woman got positively fat. While her brother growed into a giant. Which is a sight different from how they come to us. ‘Twas Nellie, my oldest girl, ‘twas Nellie brought ‘em into the house. She come to me one morning, and said: ‘Papa, I got two wild yunguns locked in the kitchen. I caught ‘em outside stealing milk and turkey eggs.‘ That was Lulamae and Fred. Well, you never saw a more pitiful something. Ribs sticking out everywhere, legs so puny they can‘t hardly stand, teeth wobbling so bad they can‘t chew mush. Story was: their mother died of the TB, and their papa done the same — and all the churren, a whole raft of ‘em, they been sent off to live with different mean people. Now Lulamae and her brother, them two been living with some mean, no-count people a hundred miles east of Tulip. She had good cause to run off from that house. She didn‘t have none to leave mine. Twas her home."
(80/130p. Penguin Classic, 2022) - P80
"She plumped out to be a real pretty woman. Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than the radio. First thing you know, I‘m out picking flowers. I tamed her a crow and taught it to say her name. I showed her how to play the guitar. Just to look at her made the tears spring to my eyes. The night I proposed, I cried like a baby. She said: ‘What you want to cry for, Doc? ‘Course we‘ll be married. I‘ve never been married before.‘ Well, I had to laugh, hug and squeeze her: never been married before! "
(81/130p. Penguin Classic, 2022) - P81
"Sure, Lulamae. If you‘re still around tomorrow."
She took off her dark glasses and squinted at me. It was as though her eyes were shattered prisms, the dots of blue and gray and green like broken bits of sparkle. "He told you that," she said in a small, shivering voice.
(83/130p. Penguin Classic, 2022) - P83
"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Doc‘s mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can‘t give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they‘re strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That‘s how you‘ll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You‘ll end up looking at the sky."
(86/130p. Penguin Classic, 2022) - P86
All this, combined with the city heat of the summer, had reduced me to a state of nervous inertia. So I more than half meant it when I wished I were under the wheels of the train. The headline made the desire quite positive. If Holly could marry that "absurd foetus," then the army of wrongness rampant in the world might as well march over me. Or, and the question is apparent, was my outrage a little the result of being in love with Holly myself? A little. For I was in love with her. Just as I‘d once been in love with my mother‘s elderly colored cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named McKendrick. That category of love generates jealousy, too.
(89/130p. Penguin Classic, 2022) - P89
It was a telegram from Tulip, Texas: Received notice young Fred killed in action overseas stop your husband and children join in the sorrow of our mutual loss stop letter follows love Doc.
Holly never mentioned her brother again: except once. Moreover, she stopped calling me Fred. June, July, all through the warm months she hibernated like a winter animal who did not know spring had come and gone. Her hair darkened, she put on weight. She became rather careless about her clothes: used to rush round to the delicatessen wearing a rain-slicker and nothing underneath. José;
moved into the apartment, his name replacing Mag Wildwood‘s on the mailbox. Still, Holly was a good deal alone, for José;
stayed in Washington three days a week. During his absences she entertained no one and seldom left the apartment — except on Thursdays, when she made her weekly trip to Ossining.
(93/130p. Penguin Classic, 2022) - P93
|