Songs in Ordinary Time Page 69

  “Earlie! Help me, Earlie boy. I am in…oh…so…much…pain….” The words bubbled from deep in the old man’s chest.

  He wrenched the wheel and changed lanes, pulling out so quickly that horns blared all around him. The old man stared at him as the car skidded into the breakdown lane.

  “No!” Luther insisted, squeezing the unyielding bony arm. “Come on! Come on! Come on! We almost there!”

  The eyes didn’t blink or close. It didn’t take but a few minutes to cover him with a blanket and arrange him, stretched out in the back of the station wagon. He continued north, not sure of anything now but this looming emptiness. Nothing to do and nowhere to go. With the magazine crew he’d been part of something. And even after that he’d had the old man.

  A cruiser passed now and his foot lifted from the gas pedal. At the next rest area he pulled in and parked at the end of the strip. There were two other cars in here. As soon as they left he would get out, run through the woods, emerge farther down the highway, and start thumbing. The police would see that the old man got buried. Maybe a few people would say the kind of prayers and sing the kind of hymns a man of God deserved. The first car had left, but the woman in the second car was putting on lipstick and spraying her hair. She leaned close to the mirror and squeezed something on her chin. The police wouldn’t know the old man was a preacher. No one would know and no one would care. He started the engine and drove onto the highway until he came to an exit.

  He took the first route south he came to. He drove all that day, most of the night, then the next day into the night. He wasn’t hardly tired. In fact he could feel himself growing more alert. He was bringing the old man to his only living relative, his great-grandson, the child of Earlie and Laydee Dwelley. He was doing a good thing, and he hoped the old man knew it.

  Norm raised the hood and fiddled with the carburetor. It had finally happened. He had run out of tricks. The engine was dead. He was already late for work, and soon his mother would be, too. She was behind the wheel, frantically pumping the accelerator. She told him to go inside and get Duvall.

  “My mother said to wake you up.” He poked Duvall’s arm, amazed at his energy just seconds after sleep. He jumped out of bed and followed him outside, zipping his pants and buttoning his shirt. He would give them a ride to work.

  “It’s the alternator, that’s where the trouble is,” Norm grumbled, climbing into the back seat of Duvall’s car. He sat behind his mother.

  “The trouble is, it’s junk,” she said, the lilt in her voice surprising him.

  Duvall smiled at her as he turned the key and his own car started right up. “It’s all in the maintenance,” he said, lecturing Norm through the rearview mirror. “Oil, plugs, filters. Simple as that. Just a little extra time and attention now saves a whole lot of money later.”

  “Words to live by,” Norm muttered as he stared out the side window. Duvall’s lecture continued, with his mother smiling at him. With the soap shipment due next week she seemed impervious to every setback. The disaster with Alice had only made his mother more determined. She had called the bursar’s office at UVM and they agreed to extend the first-semester payment until the end of the month. The bank was sending threatening letters, which she tore up and threw away. When his father called to say Helen had spent the money in his trust and there was nothing he could do about it, all she said was, “For God’s sake, Sam, when the hell are you going to stand up on your own two feet?”

  Hope was around the corner, bright as a new penny just waiting to be found. Every night this week she’d had Norm and Benjy combing the phone book for names of people to send letters to and pamphlets describing Presto Soap. She’d insisted that Alice come downstairs and help, but every time Alice heard a familiar name she’d start to cry. At first Marie tried to ignore it, but then she got mad. She said Alice had to snap out of it and get on with life. It was time to get back to her job and start getting her things ready for college. Alice just sat there shaking her head, crying, until Marie relented and let her go back to hide in her room.

  His mother had been typing the letters for the soap promotion at work, using Mr. Briscoe’s envelopes and stamps.

  “Believe me,” Duvall had assured her last night at the table as they licked the stamps and sealed the envelopes, “it’s the way things are done in business.”

  She pointed now, and Omar stopped at the mailbox in front of Marco’s Pharmacy. She was afraid if she took the letters to the post office Mr. Briscoe would somehow find out. She kept looking around now as she passed the bundled letters through the window to Norm. He dropped them into the mailbox a few at a time, as she instructed. When he started back she told him to check the mailbox to make sure none had gotten stuck. He checked. None had. Was he sure? Yes! Getting back in, he saw Duvall roll his eyes at him. Asshole, he thought; they would never be on the same side.

  “One thing you can’t ever do enough of and that’s promotion,” Duvall mused as they drove along.

  “But it’s starting to add up so,” she said.

  “Yah, Benjy counted a hundred and ten letters last night,” he called from the back seat.

  “And ninety-seven the day before.” She sighed and shook her head. “Every time I look at Mr. Briscoe I feel so guilty.”

  “Well, don’t,” Duvall said.

  “It’s almost the same as stealing,” she said.

  “Yah,” Norm called up to her. “I read that. It’s called white-collar crime.”

  “No, no, no!” Duvall insisted. “It’s all factored into the cost of doing business. The percentage of expectable loss, it’s called. POEL.” He kept glancing over at her. “In business you start with that, the poe-el is how you say it. It’s a given. Mistakes, damage, shop-lifting…”

  “Petty theft!” Norm interrupted, then scratched his head. “Or is that larceny?” His eyes scored Duvall’s in the mirror. “What’s grand larceny? Is that the same as embezzling? What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t know, Norm,” Duvall said.

  “Really? I’m surprised.”

  His mother’s head shot around. “And what’s that supposed to mean? Why did you say that?”

  “Ignore it, Marie. I intend to.”

  “No. I’m sick of his mouth! I’m sick of the way he talks to you!”

  “Forget it, Marie, I got a very thick skin, ’case you haven’t noticed.”

  She hit the top of the seat. “You can’t stand seeing things get better, can you, Norm? Well, I’m sick of your sniping! I’m just sick of it!”

  He’d gone too far, and now he was going to pay for the stalled car and all her guilt over Briscoe’s stamps and envelopes. They were turning the corner onto Claxton Road toward the municipal garage. His crew was just climbing onto two trucks. They looked up as the car approached, and he was pleased that they’d been waiting for him.

  “You apologize to Omar! Right now!”

  Duvall parked in front of the truck. Kenny Doyle, his foreman, leaned over the wheel and peered down quizzically. Duvall turned to Norm with a patronizing smile.

  “Apologize!” she demanded. The silence in the car crackled. The windows were open. She’d sit out here all day if she had to, and then all night, and on and on, until she got her way.

  Kenny leaned out of the cab. “You coming, kid?” he hollered.

  “Apologize!” she said, loudly enough to make every man on the truck look down.

  “I gotta go.” He jumped out and started toward the truck. “Sorry I’m late,” he called up to Kenny, who looked past him. A car door slammed shut and from the corner of his eye he saw a tornadic blur.

  “You get back here right now!” his mother called as she stormed toward him.

  “Mom!” He couldn’t believe she’d do this. Not with all the guys in the truck watching, guys he’d spent the whole summer getting to respect him.

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me! Ever!” She squeezed his arm, and for the first time he realized how small this woman was, sk
inny, almost fragile. “Do you hear me?” she demanded in the shadow of the big truck with the leathery-skinned, broad-shouldered men looming over them.

  “Mom, please,” he said in a low voice. “They’re waiting for me.”

  “They can wait!”

  “Mom, they can hear you.”

  “Good! And they’re going to hear more if you don’t get back there and apologize,” she said even louder.

  Not a sound came from either truck as he followed her back to the car and mumbled an apology to Duvall, who offered his hand. He hesitated.

  “Norm,” she warned.

  He shook Duvall’s hand.

  “Apology accepted,” Duvall said with a somber nod. He started the car and they drove off.

  Norm’s eyes burned as he walked back to the truck. A buzz of conversation began among the men, as if they hadn’t heard or seen a thing. Both trucks started up. He had climbed halfway up the side when his foot skidded off the ridge and he slid back down. His right elbow was scraped. He braced his foot and started to pull himself up, and again his footing was off. This time he banged his knee. It would be a relief if the truck backed up right now and ran over him.

  “Need a hand, kid?” Bob Hersey pulled him the rest of the way up into the gritty back of the rumbling truck. Hersey had barely spoken to him since his mother’s angry call about the car. Shovels, rakes, and picks rattled in their clamps on the back of the cab. Hersey tapped his Camels on his fist and offered Norm one. He lit up with a long, painful drag, grateful for the burning in his chest that masked all the other pain, his elbow and knee, his pride.

  “Your mother and me used to go to the same school,” Hersey said, leaning over the side of the truck as they came through town. “Her father worked for the pigman, like mine did.” He glanced over at Norm. “We come a long way since then.” He paused. “And it ain’t always been easy, lemme tell you,” he said with a nudge and a wink. “I remember she used to come to school with wet socks. The tops’d be so wet and out of shape, you know, they’d hang down on her ankles.” He looked at Norm. “That come from only having the one pair that never did get dry some nights.”

  In spite of the tattered eviction notice tacked to the post, Joey Seldon set up a hot plate to steam frankfurts. He’d beat the Hotdog Bus at their own game. The next day Chief Stoner pulled up to the stand. He spoke to Joey from the cruiser.

  “I got a complaint here, Joey.” The Chief looked wan.

  “What is it now?” Joey sighed, and Sonny told him what he already knew. He had no license to cook. The owner of the Hotdog Bus had complained, as had residents around the park.

  “You’re not even supposed to be here, so don’t push this thing, okay, Joey? I don’t have the stomach for it right now.” Sonny sat staring over the wheel.

  At Mrs. Stoner’s funeral, Joey had heard that Eunice had a new boyfriend, a young fellow from Tarrytown who sold toasters.

  “Look, Chief, don’t worry about a thing. I’m on my way downtown, so I’ll go to town hall and see what I need.”

  “Joey! You’re not listening to me, are you. I don’t think you understand how upset people are over this.”

  Oh, he understood all right, more than Sonny would ever know.

  After Sonny left, Joey headed out with his cashbox in the crook of his arm. He had many errands—town hall, the bank, the First National for mustard and hotdog rolls. The Atkinson Savings was his first stop. There were only a few customers in the cavernous marble-floored bank, most of them women. As he came through the front door he saw Cleveland Hinds turn quickly and duck back into his office. Had Hinds always and so obviously avoided him? He wondered how many others had as well. All these years he had thought himself fortunate to be so well regarded, and all the while people had probably been leaping into bushes and doorways to get away from him.

  He stood in line behind an old woman with white hair and a pronounced hump on her back. When she turned he recognized her as a girlhood friend of his younger sister’s. Realizing how much he had aged since that night at Towler’s had been more of a shock than anything else. His last image in a mirror had been that of a tall barrel-chested man with black hair and a square dimpled jaw. Now an old man had taken his place, white-haired, round-shouldered, and triple-chinned.

  Ahead, on his left, a man in black pants and a black shirt hunched close to the teller’s window. He wore a broad-brimmed fedora that concealed his face. The man slid a paper under the grate. As the teller read it, her hand flew to her mouth. He chuckled. She wouldn’t be so impressed when she saw his life savings. The old woman counted her money, then put her bankbooks and cash into her purse. He was still trying to remember her name when she hurried past him. The most frustrating thing about his secret sightedness was not being able to greet people first. In a sense he’d been rendered even more invisible now that he was so keenly aware of being dismissed, avoided, lied to.

  “Good morning, Mr. Seldon,” the teller said with a sweet smile.

  “Good morning, dear.” It was a great effort not to gaze at her round glowing face. He pushed the cashbox under the grate. She counted his rolls of coins and the few bills. “Seventeen dollars?” she asked as she rolled his passbook into her typewriter.

  “Seventeen dollars,” he repeated.

  “Business is still good,” she murmured as she typed.

  He grunted. That seventeen dollars represented three nights’ receipts, not one night like the old days.

  “Now!” demanded the man on his left. The man leaned on the counter, his face at the grate. The teller was trying to slide something bulky under the grate. She pushed frantically with both hands, but it wouldn’t fit through. The man snapped his fingers and reached over the grate for the brown canvas money bag.

  Joey’s teller glanced up and gasped. The man turned and Joey stared at his misshapen face with its flat squashed nose, distorted eyes, and smeared wet lips as he warned the tellers not to move or follow him because he had a gun. The man sprang from the counter. Joey’s hand slid into his pocket. Head down, the man lunged past two empty desks.

  Joey called out, “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Squinting, he aimed, then pulled the trigger, but there was only a click. The man looked back. It couldn’t be empty. He was sure he had three bullets in it. “I said stop!” Joey roared as the man leaped toward the radiance of the glass doors. The gun exploded. He fired again, and the man fell against the door. “Stand back,” he ordered the tellers, who sobbed in one another’s arms, and Cleveland Hinds, who peeked from his doorway. He stood over the man, relieved to hear him moaning. With the gun still aimed he reached down and peeled the nylon stocking from the creased and grimacing face.

  “It’s Mr. Haddad!” the tellers gasped.

  In that instant some said was impulse and others called courage, the blind man’s secret was exposed. And so, because he could see, the town felt it no longer owed him anything. There were even people who insisted he had never been blind, that he had hookwinked everyone for the past twenty years. All the old rumors surfaced, but Joey Seldon had caught the imagination of the town’s young people. They came nightly to hear the story told and retold. They would ask the same questions. Had he aimed at Haddad’s legs? Yes, Joey told them, the only time you aim at a man’s heart is when he’s aiming at yours. Had he been scared? Not until it was over, and then he couldn’t stop shaking. Had it been a conscious decision to pull out the gun and shoot or had it just happened? Both, he said, with the realization that they were listening as he had for so many years, for more than words could convey. The eviction notice no longer fluttered from the cornerpost. One of the boys had torn it off and ripped it into tiny pieces.

  Blue Mooney was released from jail. Sonny tried to apologize, but Mooney pushed past him and kicked open the door. As he stepped into the gray drizzle he glanced back and swore.

  “What’d you say?” Officer Heinze called after him. The secretary and the other officers watched from their desks.

  Mooney turned and
walked back into the station. He stood in front of Heinze. “Fuck you. That’s what I said. But what I meant was, fuck all of you. Every single one of you,” he said, looking at each of them.

  Heinze’s hand shot out to grab him, but Sonny stopped him.

  “Let him be,” Sonny said. “That’s all he’s got right now.”

  He was right. Mooney only got madder. Everywhere he went he was turned away. Colter had hired somebody else and didn’t need him. He went up to the A+X, hoping to see Alice, who was out sick. Carla told him there was some weird story going around about Alice and that priest. In the few minutes he was there, Heinze drove through twice in his cruiser, and then Jerry Coughlin told him to leave.

  Haddad could confess all he wanted, but the shadow that had cauled Mooney from birth just grew thicker, the accusations only further proof of his badness. His mother wouldn’t let him through the door. She had a boyfriend now, a well-respected gentleman who brought her flowers and perfume and candy bars for the boys. He was teaching them how to play golf by letting them caddy for him. He thought selling beer set a terrible example for them, so he was going to get her a waitressing job at the country club. She had met Cleveland Hinds when she went into the bank for a car loan. He had not only processed the loan in one day but had delivered the check himself that very night.

  The only person glad to see Mooney was Bernadette, even though he hadn’t been able to find her engagement ring in the sink trap. A friend of hers needed a truck and a driver to pick up a load of soap next week in Connecticut.

  “I’m your man,” he told her. He didn’t have anything else to do.

  It was early Saturday morning and the garage felt as close as if all the summer’s heat were in storage here. Marie wanted to haul the junk inside to the dump, but without a car that was impossible. Norm’s car was next to the garage with the hood up. He worked on it every day after work, but all he seemed to be doing was dismantling the engine. There were parts lined up on the fender and some had fallen into the grass.