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The others looked apprehensively at Old Man, expecting him to strike Deena. Instead, he removed the hat from the cage, put it on, and sat down at the table with a quart of beer in his hand.
"Quit your cacklin, you old hen," he said. "I got my thinkin cap on!"
The next day Paley, despite a hangover, was in a very good mood. He chattered all the way to the west bluff and once stopped the truck so he could walk back and forth on the street and show Dorothy he wasn't afraid.
Then, boasting he could lick the world, he drove the truck up an alley and halted it by the backyard of a huge but somewhat run-down mansion. Dorothy looked at him curiously. He pointed to the jungle-thick shrubbery that filled a corner of the yard.
"Looks like a rabbit coun't get in there, huh? But Old Man knows thins the rabbits don't. Folly me."
Carrying the caged hat, he went to the shrubbery, dropped to all threes, and began inching his way through a very narrow passage. Dorothy stood looking dubiously into the tangle until a hoarse growl came from its depths.
"You scared? Or is your fa
"I'll try anything once," she a
She sucked in her breath. "Roses! Peonies! Violets!"
"Sure, Dor'thy," he said, swelling out his chest. "Paley's Garden a Eden, his secret hothouse. I found this place a couple a years ago, when I was lookin for a place to hide if the cops was lookin for me or I just wanted a place to be alone from everybody, including myself.
"I planted these rosebushes in here and these other flowers. I come here every now and then to check on em, spray em, prune em. I never take any home, even though I'd like to give Deena some. But Deena ain't no dummy, she'd know I was gettin em out a a garbage pail. And I just din't want to tell her about this place. Or anybody."
He looked directly at her as if to catch every twitch of a muscle in her face, every repressed emotion.
"You're the only person besides myself knows about this place." He held out the rose to her. "Here. It's yours."
"Thank you. I am proud, really proud, that you've shown this place to me."
"Really are? That makes me feel good. In fact, great."
"It's amazing. This, this spot of beauty. And... and..."
"I'll finish it for you. You never thought the ugliest man in the world, a dumpheaper, a man that ain't even a man or a human bein, a -- I hate that word -- a Neanderthal, could appreciate the beauty of a rose. Right? Well, I growed these because I loved em.
"Look, Dor'thy. Look at this rose. It's round, not like a ball but a flattened roundness --"
"Oval."
"Sure. And look at the petals. How they fold in on one another, how they're arranged. Like one ring a red towers protectin the next ring a red towers. Protectin the gold cup on the inside, the precious source a life, the treasure. Or maybe that's the golden hair a the princess a the castle. Maybe. And look at the bright green leaves under the rose. Beautiful, huh? The Old Guy knew what he was doin when he made these. He was an artist then.
"But he must a been sufferin from a hangover when he shaped me, huh? His hands was shaky that day. And he gave up after a while and never bothered to finish me but went on down to the corner for some a the hair a the dog that bit him."
Suddenly, tears filled Dorothy's eyes.
"You shouldn't feel that way. You've got beauty, sensitivity, a genuine feeling, under..."
"Under this?" he said, pointing his finger at his face. "Sure. Forget it. Anyway, look at these green buds on these baby roses. Pretty, huh? Fresh with promise a the beauty to come. They're shaped like the breasts a young virgins."
He took a step forward her and put his arm around her shoulders.
"Dor'thy."
She put both her hands on his chest and gently tried to shove herself away.
"Please," she whispered, "please, don't. Not after you've shown me how fine you really can be."
"What do you mean?" he said, not releasing her. "Ain't what I want to do with you just as fine and beautiful a thin as this rose here? And if you really feel for me, you'd want to let your flesh say what your mind thinks. Like the flowers when they open up for the sun."
She shook her head. "No. It can't be. Please. I feel terrible because I can't say yes. But I can't. I -- you -- there's too much diff --"
"Sure, we're diffrunt. Goin in diffrunt directions and then, comin roun the corner -- bam! -- we run into each other, and we wrap our arms aroun each other to keep from fallin."
He pulled her to him so her face was pressed against his chest.
"See!" he rumbled. "Like this. Now, breathe deep. Don't turn your head. Sniff away. Lock yourself to me, like we was glued and nothin could pull us apart. Breathe deep. I got my arm aroun you, like these trees roun these flowers. I'm not hurtin you: I'm givin you life and protectin you. Right? Breathe deep."
"Please," she whimpered. "Don't hurt me. Gently..."
"Gently it is. I won't hurt you. Not too much. That's right, don't hold yourself stiff against me, like you're stone. That's right, melt like butter. I'm not forcin you, Dor'thy, remember that. You want this, don't you?"
"Don't hurt me," she whispered. "You're so strong, oh my God, so strong."
For two days, Dorothy did not appear at the Paleys'. The third morning, in an effort to fire her courage, she downed two double shots of V.O. before breakfast. When she drove to the dumpheap, she told the two women that she had not been feeling well. But she had returned because she wanted to finish her study, as it was almost at an end and her superiors were anxious to get her report.
Paley, though he did not smile when he saw her, said nothing. However, he kept looking at her out of the corners of his eyes when he thought she was watching him. And though he took the hat in its cage with him, he sweated and shook as before while crossing the streets. Dorothy sat staring straight ahead, unresponding to the few remarks he did make. Finally, cursing under his breath, he abandoned his effort to work as usual and drove to the hidden garden.
"Here we are," he said. "Adam and Eve returnin to Eden."
He peered from beneath the bony ridges of his brows at the sky. "We better hurry in. Looks as if The Old Guy got up on the wrong side a the bed. There's go
"I'm not going in there with you," said Dorothy. "Not now or ever."
"Even after what we did, even if you said you loved me, I still make you sick?" he said. "You sure din't act then like Old Ugly made you sick."
"I haven't been able to sleep for two nights," she said tone-lessly. "I've asked myself a thousand times why I did it. And each time I could only tell myself I didn't know. Something seemed to leap from you to me and take me over. I was powerless."
"You certainly wasn't paralyzed," said Old Man, placing his hand on her knee. "And if you was powerless, it was because you wanted to be."
"It's no use talking," she said. "You'll never get a chance again. And take your hand off me. It makes my flesh crawl."
He dropped his hand.
"All right. Back to business. Back to pickin people's piles a junk. Let's get out a here. Forget what I said. Forget this garden, too. Forget the secret I told you. Don't tell nobody. The dumpheapers'd laugh at me. Imagine Old Man Paley, the one-armed candidate for the puzzle factory, the fugitive from the Old Stone Age, growin peonies and roses! Big laugh, huh?"
Dorothy did not reply. He started the truck and, as they emerged onto the alley, they saw the sun disappear behind the clouds. The rest of the day, it did not come out, and Old Man and Dorothy did not speak to each other.