Songs in Ordinary Time Read online

  “Two root beer floats,” he said, still smiling.

  While she was clamping their tray onto the car door, a pickup truck peeled out of the lot. Father Gannon craned his neck to watch it speed up the highway. “This must be a great place to work,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “All this action! All this life!”

  “A bit too lively for me, I’m afraid,” Father Krystecki said between slurps.

  Father Gannon had yet to take a sip of his float. “By the way, what are your hours?” he asked.

  “Four to twelve,” she said, sliding her pencil over her ear. A car was pulling in next to the priests’, and now another. The movie must be getting out. The lot was almost full.

  “Twelve,” Father Gannon said with a glance at his watch. “Long day.”

  As she walked away she could see his reflection in the tall angled sheets of tinted glass. He was watching her and smiling.

  At midnight Blue Mooney was in the kitchen eating hot dogs while his cousin scraped the grills clean and drained the fryolaters. Alice watched for Norm by the side of the road so Mooney wouldn’t see that she was still here. He had offered her a ride home again tonight, and Anthology Carper had hissed under his breath, “No thanks, scum, I’d rather crawl than be seen with you.”

  The office telephone was ringing. Coughlin opened his door and called out that her brother said to start walking, the car still wasn’t back. That could only mean Omar Duvall hadn’t brought it back yet. Lately he drove it so much that he was picking her mother up in the morning and dropping her off at work. Alice didn’t mind as much as Norm, who couldn’t believe any of this was happening.

  The minute Mooney and Carper came out of the kitchen, she hurried up Main Street. The tips in her sagging pockets jingled and banged against her leg. Behind her the headlights of a slowing car flicked three times from high to low beams, each with a soft tap of the horn. She walked faster. “Alice!” called a voice, and she groaned. After that night at the lake, Mooney was never going to leave her alone. He would hound her forever, because now he knew who she was and what she was, and soon everyone would know. She was almost running when the car pulled alongside.

  “Alice! Wait! Want a ride?” It was Father Gannon. He said he’d just dropped off Father Krystecki in Proctor. She accepted gratefully when she saw Blue Mooney’s car roar out of the lot.

  At home, the driveway was empty. She wanted to get inside before Omar Duvall arrived in her mother’s car, before she had to explain or lie or, worse, introduce the two men. Father Gannon kept initiating new conversations that fizzled into throat-clearing and now just the uneasy tap of his nails on the steering wheel.

  “Well, thank you for the ride,” she said, starting to open the door.

  “Alice! There’s just one thing!” he said with such startling intensity that his voice trembled and his cheeks flushed. “You know, this wasn’t a coincidence, my coming to the A+X tonight.” He blinked and clenched his fists. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Father Krystecki, but Saturday, I have to drive up to Burlington to take some papers to the Bishop. Applegate’s on the way, and if you felt like it, I could drop you off there to see your father, then pick you up on the way back. So, what do you think?”

  “No, I can’t,” she said quickly. She couldn’t recall any nun or priest ever embarrassing her about her father until this insensitive, nosy priest. Her mother would have a fit.

  “He’d like to see you,” Father Gannon said softly. “You know, this is when he needs his family most.”

  Two weeks ago she had written her father a letter, which he still hadn’t answered. She had been careful to write only of cheerful, funny things: Norm washing the car’s engine until it gleamed but then wouldn’t start because all the water had flooded it; the afternoon when Benjy fell asleep at the movies until six at night, when they called the theater and an usher found him and woke him up; her job, which she had tried to make sound interesting; the robbery at Marco’s Pharmacy. “I miss you,” she had written, “and I hope you’re feeling much better.”

  “He never writes unless he wants something,” her mother had said yesterday as she came in empty-handed from the mailbox.

  “The Monsignor got this letter from your father this morning,” Father Gannon said, handing her an envelope. “He says he misses his children dearly. He’d like to see you.”

  She turned it over, then looked up blankly.

  “It’s all right. Go ahead and read it. The Monsignor gave it to me. I answered it, and he signed it. That’s what’s meant by religious hierarchy,” he said laughing.

  JMJ

  Dear Monsignor,

  It is difficult for me to write this letter in view of these bleak facts: I am (1) a prisoner here, (2) a mental patient, and thus, (3) not to be taken seriously, and (4) without much hope of a near release from this expensive hell hole unless you intercede on my behalf as I, your faithful parishioner, have implored you to do in my previous, unanswered letters.

  I am writing this letter in order to humbly ask your forgiveness for the events preceding my internment here. If, as I suspect, I embarrassed or insulted you or yours in any way, I am sincerely and most soberly contrite.

  There are some inevitable events in a man’s life over which he has little or no control. In my own I am all the “events.” Beyond that, I offer no excuses but my own pitiless state of being (or non-being, whichever your viewpoint).

  Again, my plea is the same. Please see my dear sister and convince her that she must get me out of here. (1) This is a godless place. They tinker with our minds and care not for our souls. (2) The rates are exorbitant. $70 a day, special treatments extra. Where will that money come from? (3) I cannot exist much longer without seeing my children. They are all that I live for.

  Please speak to Helen. Tell her I wither here without the solace of my Church and family. I want to receive Communion, but I am denied sacraments. Helen would be much better off giving her money to you than to this bunch of fatcat Protestants. For what she pays here, the Pope would say a special Mass for her, I’m sure.

  Thank you, Monsignor. Please pray for me if you get the chance.

  Sincerely yours in Christ,

  Samuel A. Fermoyle

  Postscript—Bubbles, you still have not sent that letter to Dr. Litchfield attesting to my sanity. Just as surely as you know I am not insane, know that I will do the same for you if your Bishop should ever decide to farm you out. S.A.F.

  She folded the letter, stunned that he would write to the Monsignor but not to his own daughter.

  “I mailed a letter back tonight,” Father Gannon was saying. “On my way up to the A+X as a matter of fact.” Pausing, he leaned toward her. “Are you all right? The letter, it didn’t upset you, did it? Oh, listen to me. Of course it did. I mean, this must be all so painful for you. Believe me, I know it is. And I also know how personal this is. Alice, believe me, this is so confidential it’s sacred. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, this is the same as being in the confessional together.”

  “What did you say to him? In your letter. What did you write?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was cry. She pretended to yawn.

  “Oh, let’s see. It was a long letter. I told him so many things—to keep the faith and pray, and cooperate with the doctors, that God would help him, that his children stood by him, that…” He stopped, shocked by what he had just heard. His face reddened. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.” She covered her mouth. She couldn’t believe she’d said that. It had slipped out.

  “You called me an asshole, didn’t you?”

  “No!”

  “I heard you.” He looked every bit as shocked as she was.

  “I said the word, but I didn’t mean to! It just slipped out.”

  “I’m such an inspiration!” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “Don’t be. I’ve been called worse,” he said, trying to lau
gh.

  “I didn’t mean you!” she said, desperate for a way out of this mess. “You see, I’d go with you to see my father, but I know it would really make my mother mad. She’s—”

  “No, no! As a matter of fact, she said she thought it was a good idea. She said you’d be the best one to go.”

  “You already talked to my mother about this?” she asked, stunned.

  “Well, I called her.”

  “And when did she say I could go?”

  “Next weekend? That’s when I have to go up.”

  “What time did she say you should pick me up?”

  “Well, she didn’t really say. But after I leave the nursing home? Ten?”

  “And what time would we get back?”

  “She said you have to be at work by four.”

  “Of course,” she said with a bitter sigh. “She wouldn’t want me to miss work.”

  “It’ll be just the boost he needs,” he said as she got out of the car. “You’ll be so glad you did it.”

  Klubocks’ dog was sitting by the back steps with a long rag dangling from its mouth. The dog stood and wiggled its rump, but she opened the back door quickly. “My God, you stink! Go on!” she hissed, stamping her foot. “Get out of here!”

  Hoping to shorten his stay, Sam Fermoyle was trying his best to relax and become more a part of the Applegate routine. He made up his mind to participate in the group therapy sessions he had been sitting through mutely. He would become the perfect patient. The nurses noticed the change. They brought him magazines from the staff lounge and extra cigarettes. The maids in their navy-blue uniforms and white ruffled aprons took twice as long to clean his room. One of them, an olive-skinned, stout woman from town, made him guanti and smuggled it into his room. “Men who drink need a lot of sugar,” she told him as she watched him eat. The powdered sugar fell like fine snow onto the green bedspread. She brushed it off.

  “I’m through with drinking,” he said hoarsely.

  “You should be,” she said, handing him a napkin. “A man with a silver tongue like you should be out making a million dollars for himself, like my son.”

  Though Litchfield wouldn’t tell Sam exactly when he’d be leaving, he had begun to make plans. When he got home he was going to get a job, not just any job this time, but one he could look forward to when he got up in the morning, one he could be proud of. He would move out of Helen’s and get his own place.

  Yesterday, he had written Helen a letter asking her to send the want ads from the Atkinson Crier. He would have to get new clothes. He had made up a list of what he’d need for work: two pairs of shoes, one black, one brown. Three white shirts, three ties (blue, red, and brown), two suits (gray and brown), seven pairs of socks, seven sets of underwear. Handkerchiefs. He had started a grocery list, but only got as far as coffee and sugar. He didn’t know if his room would have a refrigerator for the cream, or even a stove, for that matter. And where would this room be? Who would rent him a room if he didn’t have a job? And who the hell was going to hire him? And if no one would hire him, how the hell was he going to pay for the new clothes? And if he didn’t have at least one good suit and a pair of half-decent shoes, he couldn’t even hold his head up during an interview. He would write Helen another letter asking for a loan to get him started.

  He stood in front of the mirror combing his hair. He changed his part from right to left, then back again. First day home he would get a haircut and a shave. He would ask the barber which side looked best parted. He leaned close to the mirror. He would have those nostril hairs clipped. He felt better already. He started another list, this one, personal-care items: shaving cream, styptic pencil, razors. Bay rum, he wrote, then scratched it out with a chuckle.

  Marie whipped the potatoes, then set the table quickly around Omar, who ran his finger down the want ads. “Short-order cook,” he murmured. “Stock boy…telephone repairs. Oh my Lord, my dear, dearest Lord,” and as he sighed, his whole body seemed to deflate.

  Poor Omar, how much more rejection could he take? She bit her lip. Never had she seen anyone work so long and hard with so little to show for it. It didn’t make sense. In the last few weeks he had been working sixteen-and twenty-hour days. He was always in a hurry. The only time she saw him lately was when he drove her to work in the morning and then picked her up when the store closed. He would come into the house just long enough to wolf down dinner before rushing out again on the trail of new leads. He had lined up dozens of people interested in becoming Presto Soap dealers, but he had yet to sell a single franchise.

  He turned the page now and yawned. Poor thing, he could barely keep his eyes open half the time, and now he had this skin condition. She had first noticed the deep purple blotches on his neck Thursday morning on the way to work. Just the heat, he had said, trying to make light of them.

  “No,” she had said, leaning closer and pulling back his collar. “They almost look like bruises.”

  “Stress,” he had said, removing her hand. “That’s all, just a physiological manifestation of my frustration. A sign.” He had smiled sadly. “Marie, I’m afraid I’ve become just one more problem in your life.”

  “No! No, you’re not! Of course you’re not,” she had insisted.

  “Well, let’s just say I don’t make things any easier for you, especially with the children, with Norm. I know how bitter he is about me having the car all the time.”

  No, the only real problem was Norm’s surliness. The minute Omar walked into a room, Norm would leave.

  Omar yawned again now, as he began to tell her about the grueling two-day sales meeting in Bennington that had ended with the induction of new distributors. He had been there as an observer. The company was extremely careful not to put pressure on new people. “The top brass, they were all there,” he was saying. “Distributors from all over the country in their pin-striped suits and solid-gold cuff links.”

  She slid into the opposite chair, a dazed smile forming. She was dying to hear if he’d gotten to talk with Roy Gold, the president.

  “There was this one gentleman from Louisville, Kentucky, whom I met when I went into the…the rest room.” He cleared his throat and she was sure he was blushing.

  “And I could not believe my eyes,” he continued. “Because there he was, this particular gentleman from Louisville, with his foot up on the washbasin, buffing his wingtips with dollar bills. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ I said, ‘but I think those are dollar bills with which you are buffing your shoes.’ And he says in this honey-thick drawl, which if you think mine is bad you should hear him, he says, ‘They sure are, Mr. Duvall. A dollar bill’ll put a shine on just about anything.’ And then he looked at me, one of those kind of sidelong glances when you can just feel all your bones and the fillings in your teeth being enumerated, and he says, ‘Or maybe you didn’t know that, Mr. Duvall.’ And then, just like that, he crumpled those dollar bills up and tossed them in the wastebasket like they were nothing, nothing at all to him, a man of his position. Like it was all so…so beneath him, and the door wasn’t even closed behind him but what I was pawing through that wastebasket, when all of a sudden it hits me, and I’m thinking, I am not like him. In fact I am not like any of them in there with all their, pardon my French, Marie, but their b.s. No sir.” He shook his head. “Am not and never will be.”

  There was a jolt of pain in her temples. Sam used to talk like this. He wouldn’t be a week on a new job before he’d be declaring himself too intelligent, too sensitive, the job too menial. Were all men like this? Was it just women who knew that a job was a job; you did what you had to do, whatever it took, and you were just damn grateful you had one. “What about Roy Gold? Did you meet him?” Her hands were shaking.

  “I did, and he said he’d like to get together with me.” Omar checked his watch.

  “Today?”

  “No, no.” He laughed. “He said to call him soon as I sell my first franchise.” He glanced up at the clock, then, frowning, held the watch to his ear.r />
  “Do you have an appointment or something?” she asked.

  “Nothing important,” he said with a wave. “Just a few more leads, that’s all. Or should I say dead ends.” He sighed.

  “You’ll sell a franchise. I know you will,” she said, hearing that old desperation in her voice. Just try. Keep at it. Don’t give up. Please. For me. For us. “What about that Bernadette Mansaw? Didn’t you say she’s buying in?”

  “Well,” Omar said, “we’re getting there, getting close, but the problem’s precedence, which I totally understand, precedence being such a powerful motivating factor in today’s business world.”

  “What do you mean, precedence?” She hated asking; Omar seemed to think she had such a head for business.

  “For instance, how do I convince Miss Mansaw that she’s joining a flourishing empire when I have no other investors to show her?” He smiled. “You see, not many people can judge character as well as you, Marie. Most of the ones I run into need facts and figures. I’m trying to help them envision a future, and all they want to see is a warehouse filled with product. They lack magnitude and imagination! It’s hard with such little people. You want so much to give them that boost, that head start, but they fight you and doubt you and fight you and doubt you. They all want precedence, which I can neither deliver nor avoid.” He closed his eyes with a bitter snort. “And thus the dog is doomed to chase his tail around and around and around.”

  “But what if you just said you had an investor?” Marie said. “You know, just use my name.”

  Omar laid down the newspaper and gazed at her. “What a good scout you are!” He shook his head in gratitude. “I appreciate your offer. But without a cash investment Roy Gold would never issue you franchise documentation. That man is scrupulous.” He grimaced. “Even the slightest hint of impropriety and I’d be through.”

  “I didn’t mean anything dishonest!” she said quickly.

  “Oh I know that,” Omar answered as quickly.

  “I just want to help, that’s all,” she tried to explain, her face red. He had misunderstood.