Jack of Spades Read Online Free PDF Page B

ounces of Scotch whiskey tastes very good— very good.
    “Jack of Spades” is my reward for having written a minimum of ten to twelve pages on my own novel—that’s to say, the novel that will next appear under the name “Andrew J. Rush.”
    If I postpone writing as “Jack of Spades” until the early hours of the morning, I can assume that my energy won’t flag as it inevitably flags writing as “Andrew J. Rush.”
    Wild ride. Roller coaster.
    And suddenly—the tracks have vanished in midair.
    Sometimes I find myself back in Catamount Park. Where when you were a kid you hid your fear of the roller coaster and the high diving board at the quarry. And other things.
    Catamount Park is a state park in Far Ridge, about an hour’s drive from Myrtle Street, Harbourton, where we lived at the time.
    When we were boys. Brothers.
    At the quarry, climbing the clay-colored misshapen boulders to the rocky promontory above the water. There, the high diving board.
    There were two diving boards at the quarry: the higher, the lower. The more daring, the less daring. One for older boys, one for younger boys. Children, girls, most adults swam in the “safe” part of the quarry. Teenaged boys, guys in their twenties and older guys who were practiced swimmers and show-off divers clambered over the boulders to get to the rocky promontory that was the highest point.
    Younger boys were not always welcome. Depending upon who was there, and what time of day.
    And in the near distance, tinkly music from the merry-go-round. Cries and laughter from the roller coaster.
    Some of us (boys) were obsessed with the (higher) diving board.
    “Andrew? Is something wrong?”
    It was Irina, behind me.
    I did not turn—not at once. Though I had not heard Irina approach me the hairs on the nape of my neck had begun to stir in apprehension.
    “I thought I heard someone talking. Unless it was a TV turned up high.”
    No TV. Not here.
    My dear wife had wakened at 2:35 A . M . and saw that I hadn’t come to bed and so went to look for me and found me in my study in a far wing of the house seated at the scarred antique desk with a single lamp burning, wholly absorbed in writing—writing rapidly, by hand, on the legal pad.
    Trying to remain calm, calmly smiling, yes and smiling with my eyes as well as my mouth—“Irina! Why aren’t you asleep, darling?”
    “I was asleep, Andrew. I went to bed at eleven. But—I’ve been missing you.”
    Irina came forward, hesitantly. She was in a silky beige nightgown, and barefoot. Her body seemed attenuated, flattened. The soft slack small breasts, the just discernibly protuberant stomach. Her short, dark-blond, graying hair was matted on one side of her head. In the wan light her face appeared pale and insubstantial as a paper mask, faintly lined. Beneath her concerned eyes, shadows like smudges.
    Wife, mother, helpmeet. It is good of you to love her.
    But why do you love her? Is she not one of those who have worn out your love?
    A wife is an emotional parasite. You are the parasite’s host.
    Easily, the wife’s skull might be broken in a fall.
    In the night, on the steep steps—easily.
    Quickly I laid down my pen, and pushed away the yellow legal pad so that, if Irina came to me, she could not glance down—(as if innocently)—and see what I’d been writing.
    Irina respects my need for privacy, when I am writing; it is rare for her to enter my writing room uninvited.
    So too, when they were growing up, the children respected Daddy’s need for privacy. Though it was rare to punish them, only rather to discipline them.
    Ridiculous, to be playing “Daddy”!
    Too many years of playing Daddy!
    No more Daddy than Jack of Spades is Daddy.
    “Well. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, Andrew. Come to bed when you can.”
    Irina spoke uncertainly. She must have wanted to come to me, to touch my shoulder, the back of my neck—a wifely gesture. Was there something in my face that discouraged her?
    A woman is