Songs in Ordinary Time Read online

  His teeth ached, rotted in his head. When he yawned or coughed he could even smell them. When he had talked to the plant manager about the job, he’d held his hand to his mouth. The manager came right out with it and asked if he’d tried AA. Tried everything, he’d said, grinning, briefly forgetting the teeth. Tried AA and God and Sterno and straitjackets, and I’m just going to try me. The manager had looked away, hadn’t laughed. Why the hell should he?

  His first break came at three a.m. The night watchman came into the storeroom and offered him a cigarette. A bandy-legged old fellow with bright eyes and the white fuzz of unshaven whiskers, he glanced slyly from Sam to the door he had just bolted.

  “They don’t allow smoking in here,” he wheezed, “but I’m careful enough.” He held out a tin can of swollen cigarette butts floating in brown water that served as an ashtray. Sam turned down the cigarette. He’d rather go outside and smoke alone.

  “So you’re the new loader,” the old man said, taking a deep drag.

  “I’m the new loader,” he said, anxious to get back up onto the machine and start the engine. He didn’t like the empty sounds of the factory, the creak of wood, the persistent clanging somewhere of a pipe, the hiss of steam.

  “A quick one,” the old man was saying, sucking his gums, holding out the half pint of blackberry brandy. “Go ahead.”

  He shook his head, climbing quickly back onto the loader, turned it on. The motor roared and shimmied, its rumble oddly comforting. The old man tilted the bottle back, closing his eyes as he drank. When he was done he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and blinked, eyes glistening as if he were on fire inside. Dying and alive, Sam knew. He looked away, afraid. It fizzed in his brain like flashing bulbs, like anger, hunger, this thirst, this need, this painless death where the mourners round the bier offered total absolution: He was drunk. What did he know? Right. He knows not what he does. He didn’t mean it, chorus to his mother’s dying litany. He didn’t mean it. I know he ripped apart your lawn and knocked down your brand-new fence and smashed up your son’s car, impregnated your eighteen-year-old daughter, spit in your face, stole the rents, hurled a bottle through the movie screen, set your newspaper on fire while you were reading it, passed out and vomited at his own sister’s desperate and pitiful wedding, has never lasted a full year at any job, has cheated and lied, hastened the death of his father, has struck his wife, resented not only his children’s needs but their existence as well, their very being, each birth terrifying him, diminishing him, but he didn’t mean it. You see, he was drunk. Such power he had when he was drunk. That was it, he thought, seeing the old man shuffle through the door. Like someone who’s dying, his mother, or a sick child. Read to me, play with me, sing to me, don’t go. I’m afraid of the dark. If you leave me, something terrible will happen. At least leave the door open. Marie was the only one left. One by one they had tired of him. All his life there had been no end of people anxious to rehabilitate him. Pick up the pieces. Sober him up. Forgive him. You were drunk. You didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it.

  He called Marie today to tell her about his job, but her reaction had been disappointing. Her voice was different. The edge was gone, the nervous little tremble in her words, the caring, the hope, the sorrow, had been replaced by boredom, annoyance. He had become a nuisance. He thought he heard her yawn.

  “I’m a changed man,” he’d whispered into the phone.

  What else is new? she might as well have said. She told him she didn’t have much time. She was in the middle of something. She hung up. She didn’t need him anymore, weak or strong. She just didn’t need him.

  There would be only Helen left. Waiting, reeling him in, closer each time, the line fraying and thinning, her lure that money as she devoted her life to his doom. And it was funny, really; as a child he had adored her, been desperate for her love, had leaped from trees and the pitched roof of the shed screaming, “Look, Helen, look!” Actually he’d had two mothers, the crimp-souled, stiff-eyed older sister, plain and sharp-tongued without love or humor, determined that he would have the upbringing she had endured. And the mother, mellowed enough by time and frustration and recognizing in her spinster daughter the folly of prayers, parsimony, and manners, allowing her late-born son every whim in the name of love, celebrating him, always looking the other way, and when he was in trouble she would weep at the thought that he might have been offended or injured by his accuser.

  The sun had scoured its way through the high sooty windows of the storeroom. It was six o’clock. Four empty walls. He was done, all of the hundreds of cartons moved onto the loading platform, ready for shipment.

  It was over. He walked home, exhilarated by the sweetness of damp, curling grass and cool asphalt. Windows were open in the houses he passed. He could smell bacon frying. A baby cried. Ahead, the milk truck rattled from stop to stop. The milkman dashed up each front walk, the glass bottles jiggling in his metal carrier. At one house a woman stooped through the open door, reaching for her newspaper, clutching the front of her bathrobe, aluminum curlers bobbing from her head. She saw him, stepped quickly back and closed the door. He smiled, rounded the corner home.

  From her window Helen watched uneasily, peering down at his jaunty gait, alert for any sign that he had been drinking again.

  Renie put the cat in the basement. “I won’t be gone too long,” he called as he turned the dead bolt. The cat meowed against the door. “You be a good Tom now, and when I get back we’ll have us a nice big lunch.”

  He’d seen Mr. Cushing’s car pull into the lot across the street two hours ago, but it had taken all this time to work up his courage. This was the fourth morning in a row he’d locked Tom in the cellar, then stood by the front door with the ledger under his arm. All his years of faithful record keeping, all the times he’d rushed out to help another old woman who’d slipped and fallen on the ice in Cushing’s lot, not to mention all the cars he’d jump-started over there, all the door locks he’d fished open with his specially fashioned coat hanger, and this was his reward, to have the Golden Toastee line stolen right out from under his nose. No sir, it just wasn’t fair. He was past the depression and the brooding, and now he was just plain mad. He marched out the door, but the minute he was on the sidewalk he wanted to run back inside. He took a deep breath. He had to do this. He crossed the street.

  “Floor, please?” inquired Arlo, Cushing’s elevator boy, as he pulled the door shut. Arlo wasn’t a boy, but an old man, a contemporary of Patrick Cushing’s. Arlo had started as Cushing’s delivery boy. Through the years he had served in almost every position Cushing’s offered. Now, the same driver who brought Mr. Cushing to work also picked up Arlo.

  “Mr. Cushing’s office, whatever floor’s that,” answered Renie. Sweat ran down his temples.

  “That would be four, sir,” said Arlo, his back turned. “Fourth door on the right.”

  They stared up at the brass arrow inching its way from two to three to four.

  Renie walked slowly down the narrow corridor, counting the doors. He knocked and was surprised when the old man opened the door himself. Muttering for Renie to close the door, he shuffled back to his paper-strewn desk. Renie sat in the stiff chair facing him. He was disappointed to find the office so small and ordinary. There was no massive credenza, no wet bar, just four tall filing cabinets. The only picture, indeed the only color in the room, was a small photograph of Mr. Cushing’s daughter, Nora, and her son, both waving from the deck of a ship.

  “Yes, yes, of course. Renie LaChance,” the old man interrupted Renie’s stammered introduction. “And I know exactly what you’re here to tell me,” he said, leaning over the desk, unmindful of the dried oatmeal on his tie.

  “You do?” Renie said, hopeful for a moment. The Golden Toastee salesman must have told Mr. Cushing how important this was to him.

  “I’ve been waiting all morning for someone to face me, and not one single man in this town has had the guts to. Not one. Until you came through that door,
I’ve been sitting here, stewing away and mad as hell. But more than I’m mad, I’m ashamed. Some people moan and groan how if only old Judge Clay was here, he’d set people straight, he’d get it all back on track. But I tell you things’re too far gone for that anymore. It’s a good thing the Judge doesn’t have to live through this. I tell you, it’d break his heart, all he did for this town, and look what they do, they vote to evict his best friend. A blind man.”

  He realized Mr. Cushing was talking about Joey Seldon, the old popcorn man.

  “It’s shameful, that’s what it is,” Cushing railed. “Everybody figures good luck to the other guy, because they’ve got their own ass to cover. Nobody can take anything on face value all of a sudden. It’s all why, why, why? When I was a boy if I asked my father ‘Why?’ the answer was ‘Because I said so.’ But now the old orthodoxies aren’t enough anymore. Authority doesn’t mean a damn. Sometimes it’s enough to do something just because it’s right to do. Why? Because! Just simply because!” He banged his fist on the desk. “Do you know what I mean? Do you, Renie?”

  Renie nodded. Though he didn’t know what orthodoxies were, there was in his breast this stirring that rose with the force of the old man’s passion. For once in his life, come hell or high water, he would speak his mind.

  “Of course you do. That’s why I’m not one bit surprised you’re here.” Mr. Cushing peered up at him. “You’re not like the rest of them, are you? You’re a man that walks alone and thinks his own thoughts, and believe me, Renie, there aren’t many of us around anymore.”

  Renie’s hand closed over the ledger’s rough binding. “Mr. Cushing,” he said. “You see, the reason I came is to tell you something. You see, for a long time I been trying to get this one line, well, maybe not trying for that whole time. I mean, that I did really in the last six months—try, I mean. You know, painting the whole place and sprucing things up. But way long before that I always had this idea, you know, of being a Golden Toastee dealer, and now I can’t.”

  Mr. Cushing had been looking at him. “I would say not,” he said. A hardness rose in his features. He listened as Renie recounted the thirty-three long-distance telephone calls he’d made to Golden Toastee in the last year and a half, the six letters, the ads he’d clipped from magazines and studied so closely he knew them by heart. He told of meeting the young salesman and how impressed he was with him, the tuna-fish sandwich, how keenly he’d sensed the admiration of the other diners in the booths, and how he’d probably put too much pressure on the young man, especially insisting on the extra sandwich, and then how he’d read to him from the ledger. He described the ledgers and the years of record keeping, the accumulation of statistics he’d always wanted to share with Mr. Cushing but had never known how until now, so here they were—one book, anyway. Renie opened the ledger. He took a deep breath, then began to read, “May 14, rainy. Noon. 59 degrees, 31 shoppers. 5:30 p.m.—46 shoppers.” He turned the next few pages, reading random dates. Mr. Cushing was staring at him. He obviously didn’t understand. Renie explained that he was the one who had informed the Golden Toastee salesman that Cushing’s didn’t sell small appliances, and how he had been able to tell him how many shoppers used Cushing’s rear entrance on any given day.

  “I told him probably double that many use the front,” Renie added.

  “Actually, it’s the back that’s busiest because of the parking I’ve got. But the rest of the stores aren’t so lucky. But I told them. I warned them. You remember, don’t you, Renie? I said, ‘Go ahead and meter Merchants Row, you damn fools, and watch what happens.’” Cushing pulled the ledger close and began to read various entries aloud. “‘November 26. Light snow. 29 degrees. 236 shoppers from morning to night. Day after Thanksgiving. First day of Christmas shopping.’ This is amazing. This is really something.” He looked up and grinned. “This reminds me of the old days, Renie, when people really cared about business. Aaahhh!” He waved disgustedly. “Now all they care about is putting in their forty hours and demanding more benefits than the small businesses can afford to keep shelling out. I tell you, it’s a losing game we’re playing, Renie, a losing game.”

  “Mr. Cushing, you can’t take the Golden Toastee line away from me! You just can’t!” he gasped.

  The room was so still he could hear Mr. Cushing’s stomach gurgle.

  “It’s not that way at all,” the old man tried to explain. The Golden Toastee man had approached him. It was the American way. Golden Toastee had been aggressive enough to go looking for new markets.

  “Because of me!” he cried. “Because of them ledgers there! Because I’m the one that told him you don’t sell small appliances!”

  “Renie, what can I say? We’re businessmen. It’s competition. There’s room for both of us.”

  “But you don’t even have an appliance department!” Renie cried, his voice breaking.

  “Well, yes, I do,” Mr. Cushing said softly. “As a matter of fact, we’re in the process of starting one up. It’s the only way to fight the shopping-mall competition. We’ve got to be a full-service store.”

  Renie nodded. He didn’t know what to say or do. Everything felt alien. Even the ledger book open between them was no longer his, every extrapolation of weather, commerce, and his feelings diminished now by his rashness, his foolishness in coming here. He stood up and reached for the ledger.

  “I’ll tell you what I need, Renie. I need a manager for the new department. A man who knows the different lines, someone that thinks like me. I’ll tell you the truth, Renie, all these years ever since my daughter’s humiliation, I couldn’t stand that Fermoyle family, especially Bridget and all her airs. But I noticed how she never took to you, and there again that told me something. You’re a man of principle, aren’t you, Renie? You could be a real help to me, Renie. I’m just getting slower and slower. My daughter doesn’t care about the business except for how it supports her. There’s only the one grandson and he’s dying,” he said with a wave of dismissal. The old man opened his desk drawer and pulled out a crumpled handkerchief. He blew his nose, then wiped tears from his eyes. “Do you think you’d be interested, Renie?”

  Renie couldn’t stop grinning. It was a dream come true, working with other people, supervising other workers. Helen would be so proud. People everywhere would know him. He could get Marie’s children any job they wanted in town. But then he remembered Tom. What would he do with him? There was no place for Tom to go.

  “No,” he said. “I can’t.”

  “Why?” Mr. Cushing asked.

  “Because, because,” he stammered. “Because my cat has to live in the store, because my wife hates animals.”

  “And I hate cats, Renie,” said Mr. Cushing. “It’s the one animal I can’t stand.”

  Renie was turning his CLOSED sign to OPEN when Robert Haddad came to the door. The insurance agent wanted to buy his wife an electric mixer, the fanciest model Renie had.

  “This here’s the best one. MixMaid,” he said, sliding a heavy white mixing set from the shelf. He blew dust from the box as he carried it to the counter. “It’s got your four different-sized bowls,” he said, tearing it all from the box. His hands could not work fast enough. He had to make this sale before Haddad heard about Cushing’s new appliance department. “Your three different-sized beaters. Your special dough thing here,” he said, holding up the rectangular steel paddle. “Your wife make bread?” he asked doubtfully. Mrs. Haddad sure didn’t look like a lady that made bread.

  “Well, let’s put it this way, she’s gonna be making a lot of dough.” He laughed.

  “Then maybe she oughta have more the commercial mixer,” Renie said, crestfallen. He didn’t sell commercial mixers. “This here ain’t gonna give her the volume for a lotta dough.”

  “No. No, Renie, it was a joke.” Haddad rolled his eyes and sighed. His wife was going to sell soap at parties. The mixer was a surprise. He was hoping to get her interested in cooking and baking.

  “Then this’ll do it!”
Renie cried with relief. “See, it’s got your seven different speeds, all the way from High whip to Slow blend. Your automatic beater ejection.” He pushed a button on the side.

  “How much?” asked Haddad.

  “Thirty-nine ninety-nine,” he said.

  Haddad whistled. “That’s expensive! I can go up to Monkey Ward’s and get one half that price, but the thing is, I’d rather keep my business downtown.”

  “But they’re not gonna be selling MixMaid,” Renie said. “That’s the thing. This here’s a quality machine. Listen. Listen to this,” he said, turning on the mixer. The beaters spun to a silver blur in the clear glass bowl. Renie moved the dial from speed to speed, his spirits climbing.

  He looked up to see Haddad standing by the cellar door. “What’s down here, storage?” he asked, opening the door. “Jesus Christ!” He jumped back, startled to see Tom pass in front of him. Tom sprang onto the counter.

  “I don’t keep much inventory,” Renie said, stroking the cat’s rippling back as it curled against him. Haddad didn’t like Tom and the cat could tell. “I sell off the floor,” Renie explained.

  “Keeps things simple that way, huh?” Haddad asking, peering down the dark stairs.

  “Yah, so I don’t get stuck with ten models of last year’s washing machine,” Renie boasted. Of course, he couldn’t afford to buy ten models in the first place. But Cushing’s would be able to. Soon when his customers didn’t see the model they wanted, they’d only have to cross the street for it.