Songs in Ordinary Time Page 23

  One month later, Dr. Hess had called him at the station and asked him to stop by the office. Before he had even hung up the phone, Sonny knew that the price he’d pay for his sin would be Carol.

  Lately, he understood nothing. Carol was dying, and he cried out in his sleep and sat up trembling with cold sweats in the heat. He couldn’t bear to look at his ravaged wife. His son got on his nerves all the time. His men thought him demanding and unreasonable with them and far too easy on the town’s transgressors. Their Chief never target-practiced with them anymore. At the station he sat in his closed office and stared out the window over Merchants Row, bewildered to find the bright July world so grimed with gray. His men thought it was his wife he mourned, but it was himself.

  Tonight, the council room was stiff with heat and surly voices. Sonny Stoner squirmed in the hard oak chair. He had never liked meetings, and this one was always the most grueling. It was the annual vote on Joey Seldon’s popcorn stand, postponed these last few weeks because of Judge Clay’s death.

  “Nothing but an eyesore,” John Creller was saying. “And one of these days, the whole shebang’s gonna come down on some innocent passerby and then there’ll be hell to pay! The town’ll be up to their ears in lawsuits.”

  Sonny scraped his fingernail along the soft grime on the lip of the oak table. The popcorn stand that Sonny had helped build years ago as a boy was now falling apart. All that was left of the original roof was tar-paper strips that lifted in the slightest breeze. Some of the sideboards had buckled from the studs and the rotten cornerposts had become as precarious as the old man’s disposition. For years Joey had refused to repair the stand, claiming its upkeep was the town’s responsibility. Recently when people had tried to help by repairing the stand themselves, Joey had alienated them with his demands and criticism. And now neighbors around the park were complaining about his radio, which blared past midnight some nights.

  “If he’d just say thanks,” Creller was saying. “But every year it’s the same thing—gimme, gimme, gimme.”

  Sonny tilted his wrist to look at his watch. He should have been at Eunice’s an hour ago. When he’d left the house tonight, Lester had called him a hypocrite when he said he had to work late. Lester wanted to see Alice tonight. He’d never seen his son so angry, so violent. Lester had raised his fists, and Sonny had all he could do to keep from smacking him.

  “I say we do the old man a favor and bulldoze the thing,” Creller said with a nod. He sat down, and next to him Jarden Greene grinned.

  Sonny’s foot began to tap. He could feel Craig Bixby, the town counsel and a friend of both Joey Seldon and old Judge Clay, staring at him. Bixby expected Sonny to stand up now and deliver the Judge’s yearly speech on Joey’s behalf.

  Joey Seldon had been Atkinson’s chief of police before Sonny’s father. Seldon’s brief career as Chief had ended one night years ago up on Humpback Mountain with a violent explosion at Towler’s still that killed Ark Towler and left Joey Seldon comatose for weeks, and then blind.

  Because Seldon hadn’t served long enough to qualify for a pension, the town built the popcorn stand and turned it over to him in a festive hero’s ceremony. Everyone was there, even Towler’s widow and her three little girls. Through all the speeches and songs, she stood under a tree, her blank expression never changing. When the ribbon was cut and Joey was finally led inside the red-enameled stand to applause and cheers, she smiled, then walked away. Joey had been off duty the night of the explosion, and the rumors had already started that he had been at Towler’s that night picking up his fee for silence.

  Now Craig Bixby was trying to catch his eye, but Sonny just sat there. Let Bixby stick his neck out for once, he thought as he stared wearily at his folded hands.

  Other men were looking down the table at him. They knew it was his turn. Why did they do this every year? he suddenly wondered. Why not vote Joey a ten-or twenty-year lease on the stand? Why had no one ever thought of this before?

  The mayor rose now and patted his jacket pockets. He leafed through his papers, then, with a glance at Sonny, raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  Sonny would not look up. His toes curled in his shoes.

  “Well, here we go again,” the mayor began good-naturedly. “Beating the same old dead horse…”

  His eyes glazed with the memory of Eunice’s husky voice describing the smooth satin sheets she’d put on the bed tonight.

  “And Sonny’ll go up there tonight and tell Joey he can stay, but the condition is, he’s got to close at nine sharp. No ifs, ands, or buts….”

  “You told him that last year,” Creller called out. Jarden Greene nodded furiously. “And his excuse last year was he had to keep the radio loud so’s he could hear the time when to close.” Greene nudged him then, and Creller added, “And even with the radio loud he still stayed open till all hours.”

  Greene nodded smugly. Greene and Joey had been going at it for years. Each wanted to be the park maestro.

  “Okay,” the mayor said, rubbing his chin. “Ten-of-nine curfew, then. Sonny, you tell Joey when he hears the ten-of-nine blow, he’d better blow, too.”

  The council members chuckled. Some had begun to pack up their papers. Craig Bixby was unwrapping the big green vile-smelling cigar that always signaled the end of a meeting. The mayor looked up to take the vote.

  “Bet he don’t do it!” Creller called out suddenly, with Greene hunched at his elbow. “And instead of a vote on the popcorn stand, by Jesus, I propose we vote on an investigating committee to find out what Seldon was really doing up at the still that night!”

  The men groaned. Bixby laid the cigar on the table as the mayor looked entreatingly at Sonny.

  Creller was one of those for whom every issue had to be a life-or-death struggle. Last meeting, at Robert Haddad’s urging, he had made a motion to ban women in shorts from all public places.

  Every year it was the same, the same complaints about Joey’s arrogance, his lack of gratitude, the same speeches, the same defenders, but then, at the last moment, the same resounding vote to grant the old man his space on the corner of the park for one more year. Now the mayor had taken up Joey’s defense again. Sonny felt the room seethe with heat and the bitter smoke of newly lit cigarettes. The men coughed and squirmed in their seats. It was going badly. Jarden Greene was on his feet, arguing with the mayor.

  “No sir!” Greene ranted. “This is a matter for the courts. I move we let Bixby here earn the lawyer money we vote him every year, and let the courts settle this popcorn shit once and for all!”

  Attorney Bixby swung his black briefcase onto the table, and as he stood up, he cast a last hopeful look at Sonny. Bixby tugged at his tie knot and sighed. “Fine with me, Jard.” He smiled down at Greene’s pinched face. “Maybe I’m not too bright, but I really don’t see the harm in you sending one of your crews over with a jar of paint and a few shingles and a coupla nails to give that damn stand a quick one-two.” Bixby peered over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “It’d be a hell of a lot cheaper than a court fight.”

  “A coupla nails and a jar of paint,” Greene scoffed, looking up and down the table. “Next thing, Craig’ll be up here asking why don’t I run a crew down to the tracks and spruce up Nigger Flood’s place.”

  The council chuckled. Greene’s remark had been a dig at Mrs. Bixby’s annual chairmanship of the Fresh Air Fund, which delivered a dusty busload of New York street kids to Atkinson’s green valley every August. Bixby’s face reddened and his shrewd old eyes narrowed, and now, as he spoke, Sonny recognized the old courtroom cadence.

  “That’s right, Jard. There’s a lot wrong in this world. A lot of people born a second too late and a step behind, or maybe even just a little different from you and me. And there’s not a lot we can do about it. We meet here every week to talk about wild dogs in Cumsin’s, and variances, and which department’s going to get a new water bubbler, and, of course, Mr. Creller’s indignation over public indecency. But every once in a gr
eat while we get to vote on one of those big issues—not from any laws or statute, Jard, but from in here,” he said, thumping his chest. “We got important business here, Jard, and you’re asking us to tear down a poor harmless blind man’s popcorn stand? His only means of support?” He paused. “Why, Jard? Wouldn’t have anything to do with that little incident with his radio during your last song, would it?”

  “Of course not!” Greene spat.

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with his popcorn maybe being a bigger draw than your music, would it?”

  “You’re demeaning me!” Greene hollered over the hoots of laughter.

  Bixby stopped pacing and jabbed his finger at Greene. “You’re demeaning yourself, damn it! Now why don’t you just forget this nonsense and get a crew up there and fix up Seldon’s stand and be done with it.”

  The council broke into scattered applause.

  “Nossir!” Greene screamed, pounding his tiny fist on the table. “There’s a principle here—the same principle that keeps me from hot-topping council members’ driveways on town time and seeding their lawns like’s been done by every head of Public Works before me.” Greene was on his feet now, his spare body trembling with rage. “You can sure as hell fire me, but you can’t buy me, and goddamn it, you won’t humiliate me!” With that, he stalked out of the room.

  The men blinked as the door slammed; then a few cleared their throats guiltily and dared take a breath. Not a one had had their driveways resurfaced free by town crews since Greene had been appointed. Bixby was still staring at the door. “Phew,” he said, turning back to the table. “Almost didn’t get his cross through,” he muttered. There was laughter, but it came thinly, uneasily.

  Robert Haddad seemed screwed into a corner of his chair. For one so often indignant lately over everything, tonight he had said nothing. He was biting his nails. He glanced at his watch and sighed.

  Looking up and down the table, Sonny felt not only detached but distant from these men, most of whom he had known all his life. And it came to him now, the reason for the Towler widow’s cold smile. It had been a smile of triumph as the blind man entered his stand that day, faltering, then lurching like an animal locked in its cage for the first time.

  Creller’s words were sobering the council; a few nodded anxiously. “…hoodlums tearing up and down the streets on their motorcycles, and their souped-up cars blasting their nigger music! While the young girls walk the streets with next to nothing on! Nothing’s sacred anymore. Nothing! Because certain persons in this town, in positions of authority, certain officials are so busy hiding their own sins and transgressions, they got no time to do their job.”

  Sonny stared at his folded hands. He felt drained. It was getting late. Time, what time was it, and what the hell was Creller talking about? He looked up to see eyes quickly averted. Creller had meant him!

  “Now, I’m only telling you what was reported to me. I’m only saying that something’s very wrong with a dead man sitting in his chair for two days and nobody says a word! I’m telling you it’s all going to pieces! They tear up our public property! There’s a stink hanging over this town so bad people can’t sleep nights.

  “The way I was raised, you got a problem, you root it out!” Creller shook his head bitterly. “But of course the way I was raised don’t count no more. Used to be, every kid was in his house before the ten-of even blew. But now everything’s changed. Nobody listens to good men anymore. Now you break and enter and what do you get? A slap on the wrist, that’s all! A ride to the enlistment office, in the Chief’s car, if you please! I tell ya, our kids are running wild. You go up to that park right now and you’ll find their kinda hero with his radio blasting and kids hanging all over the bandstand, smashing bottles and calling filth out to our women passing by.”

  “You’re kidding,” Sonny muttered, but no one heard him. He wondered if this could be true, if in the malaise of the past weeks such events had indeed transpired while he had been too preoccupied to notice.

  “He’s the seed, the cause,” Creller ranted. “You can tell him to go home till you’re blue in the face, but he don’t give a damn for anyone or anything, and those kids know it. And they won’t go home, neither. So go ahead, keep on looking the other way, keep on honoring liars and thieves—”

  Sonny Stoner jumped up so fast that the table lifted against his legs. “Honor! You call that honor? Harnessing a proud man like Joey Seldon to that ragtag of a stand? Putting him at the mercy of men like you, Creller? That ain’t honor. Nossir! I call that the worst punishment of all. I call that degrading!”

  A pulsing had begun in the tall man’s head, like red-hot pumping blood that both frightened and cleansed him. They looked up stupidly and a little hurt, and yet he kept on, his gentle voice growing so loud that he was sure someone else was talking. “I was just thinking, listening to all this talk, how this is the one meeting out of the whole year everybody shows up for, and you know why? Because it’s a chance to play God for a night. We’re not here to vote from our hearts. We’re here to pass judgment on Joey Seldon one more time. So forget it, John, of course we’re never gonna vote down his stand, ’cause if we do that, then we can’t go home feeling good about ourselves that we saved Joey one more time! That we were good men! Well, that don’t make a good man, damn it!” He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair. “I’ll tell Joey he’s got to close at ten of nine.” He leaned his long body right at Creller, and he smiled. “And I’ll tell him tomorrow morning a crew’ll be up there to fix the place up, and God help you, Creller, if you vote no.”

  “Is that a threat?” Creller gasped, his puffy face white with shock.

  “Yup,” Sonny said as he zipped up his nylon windbreaker. “And carrying it out’ll be a real pleasure, too.” He grinned.

  As Sonny drove toward the park he was struck by the clarity of the stars over the black mountaintops and the sharp dark outlines of roofs, and he could hear warm voices through the lit-up windows, and he felt strong, and he felt clean, and for the first time in weeks he could think, and he knew he could take care of everyone. He would take care of his town again. He had never stopped being a good man. Until now he just hadn’t been good enough.

  Joey chuckled when Sonny finished talking.

  “Cite me the law that says I have to close at ten of nine, Sonny.”

  “Just do it, Joey. Don’t make problems,” Sonny said.

  Joey tilted his head toward the park and smiled. “Tell you what, Sonny. The minute I hear the curfew blow, I’ll start closing up.”

  Sonny unpeeled a stick of gum. “It’s almost ten of now, Joey. Can I give you a lift home?”

  “No thanks,” Joey said. “I like the walk, and besides, takes me a while to close up.”

  Even as Alice knocked on the Stoners’ door, she knew she shouldn’t have come. But Lester had called back to apologize to her mother, who then insisted she take the phone. In a low rambling voice Lester had whispered how lonely he was, how unfair God was, how it was all his father’s fault, that he and his father had just had a terrible fight, that there was too much pressure on him, that everyone expected too much of him, that he’d be better off dead. Please come, he’d begged. Please…

  When he opened the door, she was shocked at how pale and drawn he was. His skin had erupted in sore red pimples. He needed a haircut, and his clothes were soiled and wrinkled as if he’d slept in them. Every time she said anything, he would blink.

  They were upstairs watching television with Mrs. Stoner in her bedroom. Lester had made a large bowl of popcorn. He had arranged two chairs next to his mother’s bed, but it was soon apparent that Mrs. Stoner, in her medicated drift, had already forgotten Alice was there. At first, Lester did all the talking, his incessant, almost giddy chatter, gossipy and desperate to amuse her, to hold her interest, to keep her here, as if he feared that in a moment’s lull he might lose her. Everything he knew seemed to have come over the police radio, automobile accidents and domestic violence, and
now the details of a prowler who had been in the alley the other night behind Hammie’s Bar and Grill.

  “And Vic Crowley said he heard the guy running down the alley, but when he got on the street, the guy was gone! There was no one there!” Lester’s eyes shone. “It was just like the night’d swallowed him up! Vic wanted to pick that creep Mooney up for questioning, but my father said no. There hadn’t been any crime committed. You know how all the tires were flat out at the lake that night? Well, I told my father it had to be Mooney. I told him I’d swear to it even in court, I was so sure. And he said, ‘But just because he was there doesn’t mean he did it.’ He said, ‘Because if that’s the way it works, then you were out there too, don’t forget.’ Can you believe it?” Lester said. “Can you believe my own father said that?” He laughed, shaking his head. “About me! His own son!” He seemed dazed, out of step, like a first-time traveler to a treacherous land.

  She stiffened against the hard-backed chair.

  Mrs. Stoner’s chalky face turned on the stained pillow. She had been drooling. “What time is it?”

  “Eight forty-five,” said Lester.

  “Is Daddy home yet?” she asked.

  “No, Mother,” answered Lester.

  Mrs. Stoner’s eyes had closed again. “He’s so busy,” she sighed. “What is it tonight?”

  “Council meeting—or so he said,” Lester added.

  “Poor man.” She sighed again, then laughed weakly. “Lord knows there’s not much to come to here anymore, is there?”

  Alice stared at the television so as not to see the crooked nylon wig. All the patterns had been wrenched: the bright rugs smelled of damp and dust. In the bathroom, mildew had invaded the grout, and red towels hung over orange towels. The plants on the windowsill were spindly and yellowing.