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APPOINTMENT IN SAMARRA JOHN O'HARA
With an Afterword by Arthur Mizener
A SIGNET CLASSIC
Published by The New American Library
Copyright, 1934, by John O’Hara
DEATH SPEAKS:
There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and, trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
F.P.A.
CHAPTER 1
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
“Don’t, will you please?” she said, but she smiled happily and put her arms around his big back. “God. you’re crazy,” she said. “Oh, but I love you.” And for a little while Gibbsville knew no happier people than Luther Fliegler and his wife, Irma. Then Luther went to sleep, and Irma got up and then came back to the bedroom, stopping to look out the window before she got into bed again.
Lantenengo Street had a sort of cottony silence to it. The snow was piled high in the gutters, and the street was open only to the width of two cars. It was too dark for the street to look cottony, and there was an illusion even about the silence. Irma thought she could yell her loudest and not be heard, so puffily silent did it look, but she also knew that if she wanted to (which she didn’t) she could carry on a conversation with Mrs. Bromberg across the way, without either of them raising her voice. Irma chided herself for thinking this way about Mrs. Bromberg on Christmas morning, but immediately she defended herself: Jews do not observe Christmas, except to make more money out of Christians, so you do not have to treat Jews any different on Christmas than on any other day of the year. Besides, having the Brombergs on Lantenengo Street hurt real estate values. Everybody said so. The Brombergs, Lute had it on good authority, had paid thirty thousand for the Price property, which was twelve thousand five hundred more than Will Price had been asking; but if the Brombergs wanted to live on Lantenengo Street, they could pay for it. Irma wondered if it was true that Sylvia Bromberg’s sister and brother-in-law were dickering for the McAdams property next door. She wouldn’t be surprised. Pretty soon there would be a whole colony of Jews in the neighborhood, and the Fliegler children and all the other nice children in the neighborhood would grow up with Jewish accents.
Irma Fliegler had hated Sylvia Bromberg since the summer before, when Sylvia was having a baby and screamed all through a summer evening. She could have gone to the Catholic hospital; she knew she was having a baby, and it was awful to have those screams and have to make up stories to tell the nice children why Mrs. Bromberg was screaming. It was disgusting.
Irma turned away from the window and went back to bed, praying that she would not get caught, and hating the Brombergs for moving into the neighborhood. Lute was sleeping peacefully and Irma was glad of the warmth of his big body and the heavy smell of him. She reached over and rubbed her fingers across his shoulder, where there were four navel-like scars, shrapnel scars. Lute belonged on Lantenengo Street, and she as his wife belonged on Lantenengo Street. And not only as his wife. Her family had been in Gibbsville a lot longer than the great majority of the people who lived on Lantenengo Street. She was a Doane, and Grandfather Doane had been a drummer boy in the Mexican War and had a Congressional Medal of Honor from the Civil War. Grandfather Doane had been a member of the School Board for close to thirty years, before he died, and he was the only man in this part of the State who had the Congressional Medal of Honor. Lute had the French Croix de Guerre with palm for something be said he did when he was drunk, and there were a couple of men who got Distinguished Service Crosses and Distinguished Service Medals during the War, but Grandfather Doane had the only Congressional Medal of Honor. Irma still thought she was entitled to the medal, because she had been Grandfather Doane’s favorite; everyone knew that. But her brother Willard and his wife, they got it because Willard was carrying on the name. Well, they could have it. It was Christmas, and Irma did not begrudge it to them as long as they took care of it and appreciated it.
Irma lay there, fully awake, and heard a sound: cack, thock, cack, thock, cack, thock. A car with a loose cross-chain banging against the fender, coming slowly up or down Lantenengo Street, she could not make out which. Then it came a little faster and the sound changed to cack, cack, cack, cack-cack-cack-cack. It passed her house and she could tell it was an open car, because she heard the flapping of the side curtains. It probably was a company car, a Dodge. Probably an accident at one of the mines and one of the bosses was being called out in the middle of the night, the night before Christmas, to take charge of the accident. Awful. She was glad Lute did not work for the Coal & Iron Company. You had to be a college graduate, Penn State or Lehigh, which Lute was not, to get any kind of a decent job with the Coal & Iron, and when you did get a job you had to wait for someone to die before you got a decent promotion. And called out at all hours of the day and night, like a doctor, when the pumps didn’t work or something else happened. And even your ordinary work on the engineering corps, you came home dirty, looking like an ordinary miner in short rubber boots and cap and lunch can. A college graduate, and you had to undress in the cellar when you came home. Lute was right: he figured if you sell two Cadillacs a month, you make expenses, and anything over that is so much gravy, and meanwhile you look like a decent human being and you’re not taking chances of being crushed to death under a fall of top rock, or blown to hell in an explosion of black damp. Inside the mines was no place for a married man, Lute always said; not if he gave a damn about his wife and children.
And Lute was a real family man. Irma shifted in bed until her back was against Lute’s back. She held her hand in back of her, gently clasping Lute’s forearm. Next year, according to Hoover, things would be much better all around, and they would be able to do a lot of things they had planned to do, but had had to postpone because of this slump. Irma heard the sound of another loose cross-chain, fast when she first heard it, and then slow and finally stopping. The car was getting a new start, in low gear. Irma recognized it: Dr. Newton’s Buick coach. Newton, the dentist, and his wife Lillian who had the house two doors below. They would be getting home from the dance at the country club. Ted Newton was probably a little plastered, and Lillian was probably having her hands full with him, because she had to get home early on account of being pregnant. Three months gone, or a little over. Irma wondered what time it was. She reached out and found Lute’s watch. Only twenty after three. Good Lord, she thought it was much later than that.
Twenty after three. The country club dance would just be getting good, Irma supposed. The kids home from boarding school and college, and the younger marrieds, most of whom she knew by their first names, and then the older crowd. Next year she and Lute would be going to those dances and having fun. She could have gone to the one tonight, but she and Lute agreed that even though you knew the people by their first names, it wasn’t right to go down to the club unless you were a member. Ever time you went, whoever you were the guest of had to pay a dollar, and even at that you were not supposed to go under any circumstances more than twice in any quarter of the year. That was the rule. Next year she and Lute would be members, and it would be a good thing, because Lute would be able to make better contacts and sell more Cadillacs to club members. But as Lute said: “We’ll join when we can afford it. I don’t believe in that idea of mixing your social life with your business life too much. You get signing checks for prospects down at the country club, and you wind up behind the eight-ball. We’ll join when we can afford it.” Lute was all right. Dependable and honest as the day is long, and never looked at another woman, even in fun. That was one reason why she was content to wait until they could really afford to join the club. If she had married, say, Julian English, she would be a member of the club, but she wouldn’t trade her life for Caroline English’s, not if you paid her. She wondered if Julian and Caroline were having another one of their battle royals.
So far nothing terrible had occurred. Young Johnny Dibble had been caught stealing liquor from someone’s locker and was kicked in the behind. Elinor Holloway’s shoulder strap had slipped or been pulled down, momentarily revealing her left breast, which most of the young men present had seen and touched at one time or another. Frank Gorman, Georgetown, and Dwight Ross, Yale, had fought, cried, and kissed after an argument about what the team Gorman had not made would have done to the team Ross was substitute halfback on. During one of those inexplicable silences, Ted Newton was heard to say to his wife: “I’ll drink as much as I God damn please.” Elizabeth Gorman, the fat niece of Harry Reilly, whose social-climbing was a sight to behold, had embarrassed her uncle by belching loud and unashamed. Lorimer Gould III, of New York, who was visiting someone or other, had been told nine times that Gibbsville was dull as dishwater the year ’round, but everyone from out of town thought it was the peppiest place in the country at Christmas. Bobby Herrmann, who was posted for non-payment of dues and restaurant charges, was present in a business suit, gloriously drunk and persona grata at the inner sanctum (he was famous for having said, on seeing the golf course without a person playing on it: “The course is rather delinquent today”), and explaining to the wives and fiancées of his friends that he would like to dance with them, but could not because he was posted. Everyone was drinking, or had just finished a drink, or was just about to take one. The drinks were rye and ginger ale, practically unanimously, except for a few highballs of applejack and White Rock or apple and ginger ale, or gin and ginger ale. Only a few of the inner sanctum members were drinking Scotch. The liquor, that is, the rye, was all about the same: most people bought drug store rye on prescriptions (the physicians who were club members saved “scrips” for their patients), and cut it with alcohol and colored water. It was not poisonous, and it got you tight, which was all that was required of it and all that could be said for it.
The vibrations of the orchestra (Tommy Lake’s Royal Collegians, a Gibbsville band) reached the smoking room, and the youngest people in the room began to hum Something To Remember You By. The young men addressed the girls: “Dance?” and the girls said: “Love to,” or “Sa-well,” or “Uh-huh.” Slowly the room became less crowded. A few remained around one fairly large table in a corner, which by common consent or eminent domain or something was conceded to be the Whit Hofman-crowd’s table. Harry Reilly was telling a dirty story in an Irish brogue, which was made slightly more realistic or funny by the fact that his bridgework, done before the Reillys came into the big money, did not fit too well, and Harry as a result always whistled faintly when he spoke. Reilly had a big, jovial white face, gray hair and a big mouth with thin lips. His eyes were shrewd and small, and he was beginning to get fat. He was in tails, and his white tie was daintily soiled from his habit of touching it between gestures of the story. His clothes were good, but he had been born in a tiny coal-mining village, or “patch,” as these villages are called; and Reilly himself was the first to say: “You can take the boy out of the patch, but you can’t take the patch out of the boy.”
Reilly told stories in paragraphs. While he was speaking he would lean forward with an arm on his knee, like a picture you have seen of a cowboy. When he came to the end of the paragraph he would look quickly over his shoulder, as though he expected to be arrested before finishing the story; he would finger his tie and close his mouth tight, and then he would turn back to his audience and go into the next paragraph: “... So Pat said ...” It was funny to watch people listening to Harry telling a story. If they took a sip of a drink in the middle of a paragraph, they did it slowly, as though concealing it. And they always knew when to laugh, even when it was a Catholic joke, because Reilly signaled the pay-off line by slapping his leg just before it was delivered. When everyone had laughed (Reilly would look at each person to see that he or she was getting it), he would follow with a short history of the story, where he had heard it and under what circumstances; and the history would lead to another story. Everyone else usually said: “Harry, I don’t see how you remember them. I hear a lot of stories, but I never can think of them.” Harry had a great reputation as a wit—a witty Irishman.
Julian English sat there watching him, through eyes that he permitted to appear sleepier than they felt. Why, he wondered, did he hate Harry Reilly? Why couldn’t he stand him? What was there about Reilly that caused him to say to himself: “If he starts one more of those moth-eaten stories I’ll throw this drink in his face.” But he knew he would not throw this drink or any other drink in Harry Reilly’s face. Still, it was fun to think about it. (That was the pay-off line of the story: Old maid goes to confession, tells priest she has committed a sin of immorality. Priest wants to know how many times. Old maid says once, thirty years ago—”but Faathurr, I like to think aboat it.”) Yes, it would be fun to watch. The whole drink, including the three round-cornered lumps of ice. At least one lump would hit Reilly in the eye, and the liquid would splash all over his shirt, slowly wilting it as the Scotch and soda trickled down the bosom to the crevice at the waistcoat. The other people would stand up in amazed confusion. “Why, Ju!” they would say. Caroline would say, “Julian!” Froggy Ogden would be alarmed, but he would burst out laughing. So would Elizabeth Gorman, laughing her loud haw-haw-haw, not because she enjoyed seeing her uncle being insulted, nor because she wanted to be on Julian’s side; but because it would mean a situation, something to have been in on.
“Didn’t you ever hear that one?” Reilly was saying. “Mother of God, that’s one of the oldest Catholic stories there is. I heard a priest tell me that one, oh, it must of been fifteen twenty years ago. Old Father Burke, used to be pastor out at Saint Mary Star of the Sea, out in Collieryville. Yess, I heard that one a long while ago. He was a good-natured old codger. I remember ...”
The liquid, Julian reflected, would trickle down inside the waistcoat and down, down into Reilly’s trousers, so that even if the ice did not hurt his eye, the spots on his fly would be so embarrassing he would leave. And there was one thing Reilly could not stand; he could not stand being embarrassed. That was why it would be so good. He could just see Reilly, not knowing what to do the second after the drink hit him. Reilly had gone pretty far in his social climbing, by being a “good fellow” and “being himself,” and by sheer force of the money which everyone knew the Reillys had. Reilly was on the greens committee and the entertainment committee, because as a golfer he got things done; he paid for entire new greens out of his own pocket, and he could keep a dance going till six o’clock by giving the orchestra a big tip. But he was not yet an officer in the Gibbsville Assembly. He was a member of the Assembly, but not a member of the governors and not eligible to hold office or serve on the important committees. So he was not unreservedly sure of his social standing, and damn well Julian knew it. So when the drink hit him he most likely would control himself sufficiently to remember who threw it, and he therefore would not say the things he would like to say. The yellow son of a bitch probably would pull out his handkerchief and try to laugh it off, or if he saw that no one else thought there was anything funny about it, he would give an imitation of a coldly indignant gentleman, and say: “That was a hell of a thing to do. What was the idea of that?”
“And I would like to say,” Julian said to himself, “that I thought it was about time someone shut him up.”
But he knew he would not throw this drink, now almost gone, or the fresh drink which he was about to mix. Not at Harry Reilly. It was not through physical fear of Reilly; Reilly was more than forty, and though a good golfer he was short-winded and fat, and unquestionably would do anything in the world to avoid a fist fight. For one thing, Harry Reilly now practically owned the Gibbsville-Cadillac Motor Car Company, of which Julian was president. For another thing, if he should throw a drink at Harry Reilly, people would say he was sore because Reilly always danced a lot with and was elaborately attentive to Caroline English.
His thoughts were interrupted by Ted Newton, the dentist, who stopped at the table for a quick straight drink. Ted was wearing a raccoon coat, the first season for it if not actually the very first time be had had it on. “Going?” said Julian. That was all he felt like giving to Newton, and more than he would have given him if Newton had not been a Cadillac prospect. Had a Buick now.
“Yeah. Lillian’s tired and her folks are coming tomorrow from Harrisburg. They’re driving over and they’ll be here around one, one-fifteen.”
Never mind their schedule, thought Julian. “Really?” he said aloud. “Well, Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks, Ju,” said Newton. “Merry Christmas to you. See you at the Bachelors’?”
“Right,” said Julian, and added in an undertone, while the others said good-night to Newton: “And don’t call me Ju.”
The orchestra was playing Body and Soul, working very hard at the middle passage of the chorus. The musicians were very serious and frowning, except the drummer, who was showing his teeth to all the dancers and slapping the wire brushes on the snare drum. Wilhelmina Hall, six years out of Westover, was still the best dancer in the club, and was getting the best rush. She would get twice around the dance floor with the same partner, then someone would step out of the stag line and cut in. Everyone cut in on her, because she was such a good dancer, and because everyone said she was not in love, unless it was with Jimmy Malloy, and she certainly wasn’t in love with him. At least that’s what everybody said. The males who cut in on her were of all ages, whereas Kay Verner, now at Westover, and much the prettiest girl, got her rush almost exclusively from the prep school-college crowd. And she was in love with Henry Lewis. At least that’s what everyone said. Constance Walker, the little fool, was not wearing her glasses again, as if everyone in the club didn’t know she couldn’t see across the table without them. She was known on the stag line as a girl who would give you a dance; she was at Smith, and was a good student. She had a lovely figure, especially her breasts, and she was a passionate little thing who wasn’t homely but was plain and, if she only knew it, didn’t look well without her glasses. She was so eager to please that when a young man would cut in on her, he got the full benefit of her breasts and the rest of her body. The young men were fond of saying, before leaving to cut in on Constance: “Guess I’ll go get a work-out.” The curious thing about her was that four of the young men had had work-outs with her off the dance floor, and as a result Constance was not a virgin; yet the young men felt so ashamed of themselves for yielding to a lure that they could not understand, in a girl who was accepted as not attractive, that they never exchanged information as to Constance Walker’s sex life, and she was reputed to be chaste. The worst thing that was said about her was: “Yeah, you may think she isn’t attractive, and I agree with you. But did you ever see her in a bathing suit? Hot-cha!”
The band was playing Something To Remember You By.
The stag line was scattered over the floor by the time the band was working on the second chorus of the tune, and when Johnny Dibble suddenly appeared, breathless, at the place where his cronies customarily stood, there were only two young men for him to address. “Jeez,” he said. “Jeezozz H. Kee-rist. You hear about what just happened?”
“No. No,” they said.
“You didn’t? About Julian English?”
“No. No. What was it?”
“Julian English. He just threw a highball in Harry Reilly’s face. Jeest!”
Although he never had seen anything but the roof of it, Al knew that the country club was built on a plateau. The clubhouse was scarcely visible from the state highway. Cars leaving the club did not come into view from the highway until they were a third of the way down the long drive, which opened upon the highway at the gate posts. Al Grecco noticed as he was passing that another Cadillac, a big sedan job, was just coming into sight on the drive. The moment he saw the car he recognized it. He more or less made it his business to be able to recognize important cars, and this sedan looked important. It was a demonstrator, and would be driven by Julian English, the Cadillac distributor.
“The louse,” said Al. But he was not angry with Julian. It was because of an order from Julian that he had had to go to Philadelphia. It looked like Julian was going to have a good party some time between Christmas and New Year’s, because he had asked Ed Charney, the big shot, if he could get him a case of champagne, good champagne, and deliver it the day after Christmas. Ed, of course, said he’d be only too glad to get some good champagne, and he had attended to the matter himself. Ed had phoned Philadelphia and made sure that it was good champagne. Ed liked Julian English. Julian English belonged to the Lantenengo Street crowd and he was the kind of a guy that was a high class guy and would be a high class guy in any crowd. You could tell by looking at him he was a high class guy. And he always spoke to the boys on the street. He wasn’t like some of them (mostly the older guys), who would do business with Ed, say business at the bank or insurance or something on that order, but they wouldn’t even see Ed when they met him on the street. Or even guys who didn’t know Ed, they would call up and say this was So-and-so, president of such and such a company, and could Ed do them a favor and get a case of genuine Scotch at a good price. In the early days Ed would try to put himself out for the respectable people, the ones that thought they were high class. But Ed saw it didn’t pay; they didn’t appreciate it when he did them a favor, and they didn’t even say hello to him the next time he saw one of them on the street. So there were only a few of the Lantenengo Street crowd who could get a favor out of Ed without paying cash on the line for it. But Julian English certainly was one of them. And it wasn’t only because he spoke to you; it was the way he did it. He spoke to you like a human being, and now and then he even sat down for a cup of coffee with Ed. “That English, he’s my boy,” Ed once said, and that was enough. “For my money,” Ed said, “I will take that English. He’s a right guy.” That was plenty. In Ed’s position you had to be a good judge of what a man was like, and the English was copacetic. And Al agreed with Ed. Not that it would have made any difference if he didn’t agree with Ed. You either agreed with Ed, between Reading and Wilkes-Barre, or you got a job in the mines. That was the least that could happen to you if you didn’t agree with Ed: you just weren’t in the mob any more. The worst could happen to you was you would get held by a a couple of the boys while a couple others kicked you till they got tired kicking you, and then they would put a couple of slugs in you and that was that. But Ed very seldom had occasion to do that kind of thing. In the beginning, yes. There were several cases that the state police were still bothering about that Al knew more about than he wished he knew. That was when Ed was beginning to organize booze and the girls and the numbers racket. He had to put the screws on a few people here and there, or they would have become pests. You had to be tough in this business, or you weren’t anything. You didn’t get anywhere. Just the same, you had to be regular, you had to be on the up-and-up with those that treated you right. Al Grecco turned up his coat collar. He had felt a chill, and even though there was no one else in the car he felt a little ashamed, because he recognized that the chill was kid stuff; the way you feel when you have done something very good for somebody, or the way you feel about your mother. That was the way he felt about Ed Charney. He felt loyal.
Recognizing this he wanted to do something to show how loyal he could be, and the nearest thing at hand that gave him any chance to do something for Ed was the champagne. He turned to see that the champagne was still covered with blankets and secure against bumps. Ed would want that goods delivered in the best possible shape. Then he remembered the sedan, with English in it. He reduced his speed to thirty miles an hour and allowed the sedan to overtake him.
In a short time the sedan did overtake him, and Al Grecco could see by the way English was driving that he was sore about something. As a rule English was an artistic driver, as good to a car as men used to be to horses. And this particular job that English was driving was a demonstrator, which he kept tuned up all the time. But now English shot the car up over a rut and pushed through a six-foot drift in passing Grecco. Not that there wasn’t plenty of room, and not that Al Grecco wouldn’t have moved over or stopped if English had blown his horn. English didn’t blow his horn, though. He just tramped on the gas and gave the sedan hell. The sedan hit the drift with a hard wallop, swaying from side to side, and almost as soon as he hit the drift and punched a hole in it, English swung the steering wheel and got back on the cleared part of the road. If you could call it cleared.
Stew stuff, Al Grecco decided.
In the few seconds that it took English to pass him Al Grecco noticed that English had his hat on the back of his head, which wasn’t like English. English wasn’t what you would call a snappy dresser, but he was always neat. Al also noticed that there was a woman in the car, slumped low in the front seat, low and as far away from English as she could get. That would be Mrs. English. It never occurred to Al Grecco that it could be anyone else, because Al never had heard anything about English and other women—and if English had been a chaser Al would have heard about it. Around Gibbsville if you were a chaser it meant you had to go to the roadhouses, and Al made it his business to know who went to the roadhouses. A lot of wise guys in Gibbsville thought they were getting away with murder by taking their girl friends to the country hotels in the Pennsylvania Dutch part of the county. The wise guys thought they were pretty smart, going to those places instead of showing at the Stage Coach, which was the big roadhouse, where the drinks were six bits apiece and there was dancing and a hat-check-girl and waiters in uniform and all that front. But if the chasers only knew how wrong they were! Al made it his business to know about the chasers, because you never could tell when it would come in handy to know that So-and-so was cheating, especially if So-and-so happened to be some local big shot that could be useful to Ed up at the courthouse or in politics or even at a bank. Al remembered one time such information had come in handy. There was a councilman who was not on the take. Ed for some reason hadn’t been able to get to him with a dime, not a dime. One night Ed got the tip that this councilman was going to shoot off his mouth about a couple of speakeasies which Ed was interested in. This councilman was making a big play to get the Republican nomination for mayor. So Al happened to be there when Ed got the tip, and Al said: “Who did you say’s going to do that?”
“Hagemann,” said Ed.
“Oh, no he isn’t,” Al said, and told Ed why Hagemann wasn’t going to shoot off his mouth. And was Ed pleased! He went to Hagemann’s office and he said to him something like this: Mr. Hagemann, you’re a great Church man and you represent the good element in this town and all that, so if it gets around that you’ve been going places with a certain lady about thirty years old that wears glasses. … And Ed didn’t have to say any more. Hagemann just got up and shut the door and when Ed left they were the best of friends and still were. Ed even arranged it that Hagemann could get away with cheating on the one with glasses. Oh, in this business you had to look for all the angles.
Al Grecco stepped on it to keep up with English, who now had the accelerator down to the floor, and was keeping it there. You could tell that that was what he was doing, because when the wheels of the sedan got out of the tracks the car would leap up to the side of the road, slapping the long pile of snow. Al noticed that Mrs. English, who had her fur collar turned up higher than her ears, did not turn on English. That meant she was mad. Any woman ordinarily would be sitting up on the seat and bawling her husband out. But if he was any judge, Al was sure she was not saying a word. He began to wonder about this English dame.
He just had a feeling, that was all, but he went back in his memory and tried to recollect something, anything at all, that fitted in with the idea he was beginning to get about her. The idea he was beginning to get about her was that she might be a cheater herself. But he could not remember anything. He knew she never had been to any of the country hotels. She got loud once in a while at the Stage Coach, but no worse than a lot of others, and English was always there when she was. No, it was just one of those things. You got an idea about some person and you didn’t have any reason for it; but Al Grecco in his twenty-six years had learned one thing, namely, that if you had a hunch about a person, a real hunch that kept bothering you, something usually happened to prove that your hunch was either dead wrong or dead right.
It was seven miles and just a little over from the country club to the Gibbsville Bank & Trust Building, and practically all of the last three miles was a new and nearly straight stretch of road, which had been easier to clear; it was protected from winds by a railroad embankment on one side. Al Grecco had to step on it some more when English hit the stretch, because English was letting it out for all the sedan would take. Al kept his mind on the driving now. He did not want to get too close to English, and make English sore; but he did not want to lose him; he wanted to be close by if English got into trouble. But English was all right. One of those guys that can drive when they’re drunk or sober, the only difference being that when they’re drunk they have no consideration for what they might be doing to the car.
When the two cars reached Gibbsville Al Grecco made up his mind that he would best please Ed Charney by following English all the way home, so he turned up Lantenengo Street after the sedan. He followed about a block behind the sedan, all the way out Lantenengo Street to Twentieth Street. The Englishes had their house on Twin Oaks Road, but you could see all of Twin Oaks Road from Twentieth and Lantenengo. Al stopped. English had shifted into second for the uphill grade and the snow of Twentieth Street. He made the turn all right, and in a few seconds he stopped in front of the house. The lights of the car went out, and then the porch light went on, and Al could see Mrs. English on the porch, opening the door, the light on in one of the rooms of the downstairs floor. Then English himself on the porch, the downstairs light snapped out just as a light was turned on in a bedroom upstairs. English was leaving the car out all night. He must be cockeyed. Well, that was his business.
Al Grecco put his car in reverse and backed into Twentieth Street and then turned the car and drove down Lantenengo Street. He would go right to the Apollo, the all-night restaurant where you usually looked for Ed Charney. But suddenly he realized he wouldn’t find Ed there. This was the one night of the year you wouldn’t find Ed there. “Jesus Christ,” said Al Grecco. “Me forgetting it was Christmas.” He lowered the window of the car and addressed the darkened Lantenengo Street homes that he was passing “Merry Christmas, you stuck-up bastards! Merry Christmas from Al Grecco!”
“Merry Christmas, Mary. Did you get your envelope?”
“Yes, sir. Mrs. English give it to me. Thank you very kindly, and my mother says to tell you she made a novena for you and Mrs. English. Shill I close the windows?”
“Yes, will you please?” He lay back until Mary left the room. Such a pretty day. Bright; and there were icicles, actually icicles, hanging in the middle of the windows. With the holly wreath and the curtains they made you think of a Christmas card. It was quiet outside. Gibbsville, the whole world, was resting after the snow. He heard a sound that could mean only one thing; one of the Harley kids next door had a new Flexible Flyer for Christmas, and was trying it out belly-bumpers down the Harley driveway, which was separated from the English driveway only by a two-foot hedge. It would not take long for the room to get warm, so he decided to lie in bed for a few minutes.
There ought to be more days like this, he thought. Slowly, without turning his head, he pulled himself up to a half sitting position and reached out for the package of Lucky Strikes on the table between his bed and Caroline’s bed. Then he remembered to know better than to look in the direction of Caroline’s bed—and looked. He was right again: Caroline had not slept in her bed. Everything returned to him then, as though in a terrible, vibrating sound; like standing too near a big bell and having it suddenly struck without warning. His fingers and his mouth lit a cigarette; they knew how. He was not thinking of a cigarette, for with the ringing of that bell came the hangover feeling and the remorse. It took him a little while, but eventually he remembered the worst thing he had done, and it was plenty bad. He remembered throwing a drink at Harry Reilly, throwing it in his fat, cheap, gross Irish face. So now it was Christmas and peace on earth.
He got out of bed, not caring to wait for warmth and luxury. His feet hit the cold hardwood floor and he stuck his toes in bedroom slippers and made for the bathroom. He had felt physically worse many times, but this was a pretty good hangover. It is a pretty good hangover when you look at yourself in the mirror and can see nothing above the bridge of your nose. You do not see your eyes, nor the condition of your hair. You see your beard, almost hair by hair; and the hair on your chest and the bones that stick up at the base of your neck. You see your pajamas and the lines in your neck, and the stuff on your lower lip that looks as though it might be blood but never is. You first brush your teeth, which is an improvement but leaves something to be desired. Then you try Lavoris and then an Eno’s. By the time you get out of the bathroom you are ready for another cigarette and in urgent need of coffee or a drink, and you wish to God you could afford to have a valet to tie your shoes. You have a hard time getting your feet into your trousers, but you finally make it, having taken just any pair of trousers, the first your hands touched in the closet. But you consider a long, long time before selecting a tie. You stare at the ties; stare and stare at them, and you look down at your thighs to see what color suit you are going to be wearing. Dark gray. Practically any tie will go with dark gray suit.
Julian finally chose a Spitalsfield, tiny black and white figure, because he was going to wear a starched collar. He was going to wear a starched collar because it was Christmas and he was going to have Christmas dinner with his father and mother at their house. He finally finished dressing and when he saw himself in a full length glass he still could not quite look himself in the eye, but he knew be looked well otherwise. His black waxed-calf shoes gleamed like patent leather. He put the right things in the right pockets: wallet, watch and chain and gold miniature basketball and Kappa Beta Phi key, two dollars in silver coins, fountain pen, handkerchiefs, cigarette case, leather key purse. He looked at himself again, and wished to God he could go back to bed, but if he should go back to bed he would only think, and he refused to think until after he had had some coffee. He went downstairs, holding on to the banister on the way down.
As he passed the living-room he saw a piled row of packages, obviously gifts, on the table in the middle of the room. But Caroline was not in the room, so he did not stop. He went back to the dining-room and pushed open the swinging door to the butler’s pantry. “Just some orange juice and coffee, Mary, please,” he said.
“The orange juice is on the table, Mr. English,” she said.
He drank it. It had ice, glorious ice, in it. Mary brought in the coffee and when she had gone he inhaled the steam of it. It was as good as drinking it. He drank some of it black, without sugar, first. He put one lump of sugar in it and drank some more. He put some cream in it and lit a cigarette. “I’d be all right if I could stay here,” he thought. “If I could just stay here for the rest of my life and never see another soul. Except Caroline. I’d have to have Caroline.”
He finished his coffee, took a sip of ice water, and left the dining-room. He was standing in front of the table, with its pile of gifts, when he heard someone stamping on the porch, and almost immediately the door opened and it was Caroline.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hello,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Where’ve you been?”
“Took some things to the Harley kids,” she said. She hung up her camel’s hair coat in the closet under the stairs. “Bubbie said to wish you a Merry Christmas and he told me to ask you if you wanted to ride on his new Flexie. I told him I didn’t think you would, this morning.” She sat down and began to unbuckle her arctics. She had beautiful legs that not even the heavy woolen plaid stockings could distort. “Look,” she said.
“I’m looking,” he said.
“Don’t be funny,” she said, and pulled her skirt down. “I want you to listen. This is what I want to say: I think you’d better take that bracelet back to Caldwell’s.”
“Why? Don’t you like it?”
“I like it all right. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, but you can’t afford it. I know how much it cost.”
“So what?” he said.
“Well, just this. I think we’ll probably need every cent we can save from now on.”
“Why?”
She lit a cigarette. “Well, you fixed it last night. No point in going into why you threw that drink at Harry, but I just want to tell you this much, you’ve made an enemy for life.”
“Oh, no. Naturally he’s sore, but I’ll be able to fix it. I can handle that.”
“That’s what you think. I’ll tell you something. Have you any idea how news travels in this town? Maybe you think you have, but listen to me. I just came from the Harleys’, the only people I’ve seen except Mary since last night, and almost the first thing Herbert Harley said when I got in the house was, ‘Well, I’m glad somebody put Harry Reilly in his place at last.’ Of course I tried to laugh it off as if it were just a joke between you and Harry, but do you realize what that means, Herbert Harley’s knowing about it so soon? It means the story’s got all over town already. Somebody must have told the Harleys over the phone, because I know Herbert hasn’t had his car out. There aren’t any tracks in their driveway.”
“Well, what of it?”
“What of it? You stand there and ask me what of it? Don’t you realize what that means, or are you still drunk? It just means that the whole town knows what you did, and when Harry realizes that, he’ll do anything short of murder to get even with you. And I don’t have to tell you that he won’t have to commit murder to get even with you.” She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “So—I think you’d better take the bracelet back to Caldwell’s.”
“But I want you to have it. I paid for it.”
“They’ll take it back. They know you.”
“I can afford it,” he said.
“No, you can’t,” she said. “Besides, I don’t want it.”
“You mean you don’t want to take it from me?”
She hesitated a moment, and bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. I guess that’s what I mean.”
He went to her and put his hands on her arms. She did not move except to turn her head away from him. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Reilly doesn’t mean anything to you, for God’s sake, does he?”
“No. Not a thing. But you’d never believe that.”
“Oh, ridiculous,” he said. “I never thought you were having an affair with him.”
“Didn’t you? Are you sure you didn’t?” she freed herself. “Maybe you didn’t actually think I was having an affair with him, but part of the time you wondered whether I was. That’s just as bad. And that’s the real reason why you threw the drink in his face.”
“I might have thought you kissed him, but I never thought you were having an affair with him. And the only real reason why I threw a drink in his face was I just happen to dislike him. I can’t stand his stupid Irish face, that’s all. And those stories.”
“His face looked pretty good last summer when you needed money, and by the way, here’s something you’d better not overlook. Perhaps you think people are going to be on your side if it comes to the point where people take sides in this. Perhaps you think all your friends will stick by you, and maybe you think that’s going to frighten him because he wants to run the Assembly. Well, just don’t count too much on that, because practically every single one of your best friends, with one or two exceptions, all owe Harry Reilly money.”
“How do you know?”
“He told me,” she said. “Maybe Jack and Carter and Bob and the rest would like to be on your side, and maybe in any other year they would stick by you, but I don’t have to tell you there’s a depression in this country, and Harry Reilly’s practically the only man around here with any money.”
“I’ll bet he comes to our party,” said Julian.
“If he does you can thank me. I’ll do my best, but my heart won’t be in the work.” She looked at him. “Oh, God, Ju, why did you do it? Why do you do things like that?” She began to cry, but when he went to her she held him away. “It’s all so awful and I used to love you so.”
“I love you. You know that.”
“It’s too easy. The things you called me on the way home—whore and bitch and a lot worse—they weren’t anything compared with the public humiliation.” She accepted his handkerchief. “I’ve got to change,” she said.
“Do you think Mother and Dad know about it?”
“No, I doubt it. Your father’d be over here if he knew. Oh, how should I know?” She walked out and then came back. “My present is at the bottom of the pile,” she said.
That made him feel worse. Under all the other packages was something she had bought days, maybe weeks, before, when things were not so bad as they now appeared to be. When she bought that she was concentrating on him and what he would like; rejecting this idea and that idea, and deciding on one thing because it was something he wanted or something he would want. Caroline was one person who really did put a lot of thought into a gift; she knew when to choose the obvious thing. One time she had given him handkerchiefs for Christmas; no one else had given him handkerchiefs, and they were what he wanted. And whatever was in that package, she had bought with him alone in mind. He could not guess from the size of the box what was inside it. He opened it. It was two gifts: a pigskin stud box, big enough to hold two sets of studs, with plenty of room inside for assorted collar buttons, collar pins, tie clasps—and Caroline had put in a dozen or so front and back collar buttons. The other gift was of pigskin, too; a handkerchief case that collapsed like an accordion. Both things had J. McH. E. stamped in small gilt letters on the top cover, and that in itself showed thought. She knew, and no one else in the world knew, that he liked things stamped J. McH. E., and not just J. E., or J. M. E. Maybe she even knew why he liked it that way; he wasn’t sure himself.
He stood at the table, looking down at the handkerchief case and stud box, and was afraid. Upstairs was a girl who was a person. That he loved her seemed unimportant compared to what she was. He only loved her, which really made him a lot less than a friend or an acquaintance. Other people saw her and talked to her when she was herself, her great, important self. It was wrong, this idea that you know someone better because you have shared a bed and a bathroom with her. He knew, and not another human being knew, that she cried “I” or “high” in moments of great ecstasy. He knew, he alone knew her when she let herself go, when she herself was not sure whether she was wildly gay or wildly sad, but one and the other. But that did not mean that he knew her. Far from it. It only meant that he was closer to her when he was close, but (and this was the first time the thought had come to him) maybe farther away than anyone else when he was not close. It certainly looked that way now. “Oh, I’m a son of a bitch,” he said.
“What?” said Irma.
“Shot in a whorehouse last night,” said her husband.
“What!” exclaimed Irma. “What are you talking about?”
“Here it is,” said her husband. “Right here on the front page. Mervyn Schwartz, thirty-five, of Gibbsville, was shot and killed at the Dew Drop—”
“Let me see,” said Irma. She took the paper out of her husband’s hands. “Where? ... Oh, you,” she said, and threw the paper back at him. He was laughing at her with a high, soft giggle.
“Think you’re funny,” she said. “You oughtn’t to say things like that where the children might hear you.”
He continued to laugh and picked up the paper and began to read Mervyn Schwartz’s Christmas poem. Mervyn Schwartz formerly had contributed his holiday poems (Christmas, Washington’s Birthday, Easter, Memorial Day, July 4, Armistice Day) to the Standard, the afternoon paper; but the Standard had not run his Armistice Day poem on the front page, so now be was in the Sun. Lute Fliegler read the first verse aloud, very sing-song and effeminate.
“What time do you want dinner?” said Irma.
“Whenever it’s ready,” said Lute.
“Well, you only had breakfast an hour ago. You don’t want dinner too early. I thought around two o’clock.”
“Okay by me,” he said. “I’m not very hungry.”
“You oughtn’t to be,” she said. “The breakfast you ate. I was thinking I’d make the beds now and Mrs. Lynch could put the turkey on so we could eat around two or ha’ past.”
“Okay by me.”
“The kids won’t be very hungry. Even Curly was stuffing himself with candy a while ago till I hid the box.”
“Let him eat it,” said her husband. “Christmas comes but once a year.”
“Thank heaven. All right. I’ll give them the candy, on one condition. That is, if you take care of them when they have stomach ache in the middle of the night.”
“I’ll be only too glad. Go ahead, give them all the candy they want, and give Teddy and Betty a couple highballs.” He frowned and rubbed his chin in mock thoughtfulness. “I don’t know about Curly, though. He’s a little young, but I guess it’d be all right. Or else maybe he’ll take a cigar.”
“Oh, you,” she said.
“Yes-s-s, I think we better just give Curly a cigar. By the way, I’m going to take Teddy out and get him laid tonight. I—”
“Lute! Stop talking like that. How do you know one of them didn’t come downstairs without you hearing them? They’ll be finding things out soon enough. Remember what Betty said last summer.”
“That’s nothing. How old is Teddy? Six—”
“Six and a half,” she said.
“Well, when I was Teddy’s age I had four girls knocked up.
“Now stop, Lute. You stop talking that way. You don’t have any idea how they pick things up, a word here and there. And children are smarter than you give them credit for. You don’t have to go anywhere today, do you?”
“Nope. Why?” He lit a Camel, taking it out of the package in the lower right pocket of his vest.
“Well, no reason. Last Christmas remember you had to drive to Reading.”
“That was last Christmas. Damn few Caddies being given for Christmas presents this year. I remember that trip. That was a sport job. A LaSalle, it was, not a Caddy. That Polish undertaker up the mountain, Paul Davinis. He wanted it delivered Christmas and he didn’t want his kid to see it so we asked to keep it in Reading. And then when we did deliver it the kid knew he was going to get it all along. His mother told him beforehand. He smashed it up New Year’s Eve.”
“You never told me that,” said Irma.
“You never asked me, as the snake charmer said to her husband. By the way, did Mrs. Lynch say she’d mind the kids tonight?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, then I better phone Willard and tell him we’ll go along. I’ll get that Studebaker sedan. We can get six in it comfortably. It’s a seven-passenger job, but we can sit three in the front and three in the back and we won’t have to use the extra seats. How many are going?”
“I think twelve. Ten or twelve. It depends. If Emily’s father and mother come down from Shamokin she and Harvey won’t be able to come along, but it won’t make any difference. They were going in Walter’s car, so if they don’t go, that makes two less in that car.”
“I better call the garage and make sure about the Studebaker.” He went to the telephone. “Hello, this is Lute Fliegler. Merry Christmas. Listen, that Studebaker sedan, the black one. The one we took on a trade-in from Doc Lurie. Yeah. Doc Lurie’s old car. Well, listen. Don’t let anybody take it out, see? I asked the boss if I could use it tonight and he said okay, see? So I just wanted to make sure none of you thieves took it out. If you want to go any place you can use my Rolls. Seriously, Joe, you want to do me a favor, you can put the chains on the Studie. Okay? Swell.” He hung up, and addressed Irma. “Well, that’s settled.”
“You can call Willard later,” she said. “I told him we’d call if we couldn’t go, so he’ll take it for granted we’re going.”
“What about liquor?” said Lute.
“Well, it’s Willard’s party. I should think he’d supply the liquor.”
“Oh, yeah? Do you know how much liquor costs at the Stage Coach? Seventy-five cents a drink, baby, and they won’t sell it to everybody. I don’t think Willard intends to supply the liquor, not at six bits a shot. I think I better make some gin and take a quart along, just in case. It wouldn’t be right to expect Willard to buy all the liquor and everything else for a party of twelve people.”
“Maybe there’ll only be ten.”
“All right. What if there is only ten? They have a cover charge of a dollar and a half or two dollars, and there goes twenty bucks already, not including ginger ale and White Rock, and sandwiches! You know what they charge for a plain ordinary chicken sandwich at the Stage Coach? A buck. If Willard gets away under forty bucks he’s lucky, without buying a single drink. No, I better make some gin. Or on second thought, there’s that quart of rye the boss gave me. I was going to save it, but we might as well use it tonight.”
“Oh, the gin’s good enough. You make good gin. Everybody says so.”
“I know I do, but gin’s gin. I think I’ll turn square for once in my life and take the rye. Maybe the others will bring their own, so we won’t have to get rid of the whole quart.”
“I don’t want you to drink much if you’re going to drive,” said Irma.
“Don’t worry. Not over those roads. I know. I’ll put the quart into pint bottles and keep one pint in my overcoat pocket when we get to the Stage Coach. Then the others will think I only have a pint and they’ll go easy. But I imagine everybody will bring their own, if they have any sense.”
“I imagine,” she said. “I’m going upstairs now and make the beds. I’ll see if the pants of your Tux need pressing.”
“Oh, God. That’s right. Do I have to wear that?”
“Now, now, don’t try and bluff me. You look nice in it and you know it. You like to wear it and don’t pretend you don’t.”
“Oh, I don’t mind wearing it,” he said. “I was just thinking about you. You’ll be so jealous when all the other girls see me in my Tux and start trying to take me outside. I just didn’t want to spoil your evening, that’s all.”
“Applesauce,” said Irma.
“Why don’t you say what you mean? You don’t mean applesauce.”
“Never mind, now, Mister Dirty Mouth.” She left.
What a girl, he thought, and resumed reading his paper; Hoover was receiving the newsboys for Christmas. …
Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1222
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