Some Can Whistle Read Online Free Page B

objection.
    “She’ll still freak out if you show up in a caftan,” Gladys insisted.
    “I’m afraid this means you’re finally going to have to get dressed,” Godwin said in a gloating tone.
    I gave them both a defiant glare.
    The once-respected classicist sitting opposite me had just unscrewed the top from a bottle of suntan lotion and was casually pouring the liquid over his chest and shoulders. His clothes at the moment consisted of a towel across his lap, put there in deference to Gladys’s sensibilities.
    “If you think she’ll run for the hills when she sees me, think what she’ll do when she sees you,” I said. “You’re sitting there naked and you look at least a hundred years old.”
    “Two hundred,” Gladys said. “He’s the oldest-looking thing I ever laid eyes on, and both my grandpas lived to be over ninety.”
    “Sour grapes from two sourpusses,” Godwin said. “I’m frequently complimented for my youthful deportment.”
    The top of Godwin’s head was completely bald; a few tufts of long, wispy white hair clung to the underside of his skull. In the summertime he rarely wore anything more formal than a swimsuit;with Godwin nudism was not so much a philosophy as a convenience. Three of his front teeth were missing, courtesy of a love affair with a biker of unstable temperament. Efforts to get him to replace them had so far been greeted with toothless sneers.
    For a year or two, when he first conceived of the book about Euripides and the Rolling Stones, Godwin had staggered around my hill, doped to the gills with acid and other controlled substances, earphones clamped to his head, the Stones’ music pouring into his ears for as much as eighteen hours at a stretch.
    Gladys and I both felt that he had not really come back from that experience, though what “back” meant when you were talking about Godwin Lloyd-Jons was not easy to say.
    “Anyway, why pick on me?” Godwin asked, pointing his bottle of suntan lotion at Gladys. “Gladys doesn’t exactly dress her age, you know.”
    At the moment Gladys was wearing orange parachute pants, black Reeboks, and a yellow I Love New York T-shirt. Gladys had never been to New York and would not, in my opinion, love it if she happened to go there, but she was a frequent recipient of hand-me-downs and other surprising garments from various of the ladies I know. Gladys had somehow convinced them that she alone was keeping me sane and healthy, a task none of them had shown much interest in assuming; for this they rewarded her with wild-looking pants or strange baggy coats from places such as Parachute in L.A. or Comme Des Garcons in New York, paying God knows what sums so that my maid could flit around West Texas looking totally ridiculous. People in Thalia assumed that Gladys got the clothes from the Goodwill store in Wichita Falls. She was probably the most expensively dressed woman in the county, but people still treated her like a clown.
    And something sad in Gladys stood ready to believe that she
was
a clown, which is why I spoke up instantly when Godwin made his remark.
    “Shut up, Gladys looks great!” I said. “She’s the only one around here who dresses with esprit.”
    I rushed the comment out, hoping it would arrive in time to keep Gladys from bursting into tears, which she was wont to do if any reference was made to her appearance.
    Quick as I was, I was still too late. Gladys burst into tears. Though Godwin and I had both seen this happen many times, we were still always stunned by the speed with which Gladys could move from equanimity, even pugnacity, to despair.
    “I hope that poor little child of yours stays where she is,” she said. Tears were streaming down her face, which was otherwise plain as a post.
    “She’d be better off staying with the pit bulls than livin’ in a hateful place like this,” she said. As Godwin and I sat silent, she shuffled together a few of the dishes and headed for the house.

9
    “I was merely