Place in the City (22 page)

“Nothing happened,” he said. “Just look what a mess I've made of you, and when you're in a condition that shouldn't be excited. Nothing happened. I just had a little talk with Timy about some things—and he's worried. He leans a lot on me—thinks I'm a damn good lawyer,” he finished lamely.

“Tell me, Danny,” she whispered.

Then he got up, went over to her, kissed her and crouched next to her.

T
HE RAIN
fell, lifting in its line of light the blaze of the avenues, gleams of the city, and further gleams of the tall skyscrapers that towered to the north and the south. Even to Times Square, perhaps, where the news lights spelled out: “Two murderers await their deaths tonight in the Sing Sing death house. At ten o'clock and at ten-thirty….”

And O'Lacy's feet slapped along the wet concrete of the Place, an even step that only people who obey the law and labor for its maintenance can have, a step entirely without conscience or fear. He tapped on doors with his night-stick, and sometimes he halted and stood silently in the rain.

If he thought of the death house, it was vaguely and intermittently. A murderer was a strange creature, and not to be understood very readily. You passed them on—on and on; then they passed, as tonight, at ten or so.

He thought of the murderer again, walking down to the house the music master had occupied. The man who stood in front of it, a tall man, appeared to be waiting for O'Lacy, and automatically O'Lacy arranged a few words he would say, as, Here, you, time to get along. What's keeping you?

When O'Lacy was opposite the man, he saw that it was the priest. It was the first time he had seen him since he had closed the mission.

“Hello, O'Lacy,” Jack said.

The officer nodded, and then, as by accord, they went up the steps and took shelter from the increasing rain. They stood in the doorway while drops pelted into their faces. For a while they stood in silence.

At last O'Lacy said: “It's good to see you again, father.”

“Yes?”

“Sure—I miss you.”

“Thank you, O'Lacy.”

O'Lacy noticed that the blank collar of his order was gone; and something else about him had changed. All for the woman. When O'Lacy considered that he would burn in hell for a woman—Then O'Lacy wondered why he had called him father. Instinctively, the policeman drew away. Then, obliged to say something, annoyed by the silence, yet unwilling to step out into the heavy rain, he said:

“Rotten weather.”

Jack nodded. They stood waiting, and then O'Lacy could stand it no longer. Close to the other man, he felt sin enveloping him; sin was in the house, in the very air he breathed. “I'll be going,” he said lamely. He stepped down into the rain, sloshed away into the night, and Jack watched him and began to smile, because he understood;—he understood his own wave of gladness when O'Lacy had called him father.

He stood there, thinking about the poet and the music master, and the girl, whom nobody knew anything about. She came and then she went, and with the poet she left the legend. He shook his head, smiling again, and speculating why anyone should be afraid.

Pressing back, he felt the door behind him move. Out of some impulse, he opened it, and stepped into the room. Faint light from the street lamp crept through the windows, picked out the walls indistinctly. No furniture was there. They had taken everything away, leaving only the bare shell. He walked about the room, feeling his way. Rightly, there should have been ghosts; but there were no ghosts there. Even the memories were gone; and it was no more than an empty house, the terrible lonesome shell of an empty house. And it would remain empty….

When he went back to the stoop, the rain had begun to slacken, and someone was calling his name.

“Marion?”

He found her, held onto her as though he had not left her only a little more than an hour before.

“They were the same,” she said.

Then the two of them walked out of Apple Place in the rain, and only O'Lacy saw them go. It was much as if they, who had found something there, left behind them only the shell of an empty house.

M
ARY WHITE
came back to the house quite happy, her face wet and flushed, her eyes shining. She stood in the hallway thinking and nodding to herself, smiling, and when Minnie the storage vault came in and saw her, Minnie said:

“Geesus, what hit yu?”

“Shutzey there?” Mary asked, pointing toward the room. She noticed that her finger wavered. She felt giddy, very giddy, and she felt young; she hadn't felt this way for a long time, for a very long time.

“What the hell is that tu you?” Minnie demanded. “Maybe yu think I got a house of pleasure here? Where you been?”

“Where have I been?” She laughed at Minnie, because Minnie didn't know, because Minnie would never know. She laughed until her head spun, and then she staggered across the room and fell onto the couch. There she sat, biting her nails and giggling inanely.

“You drunk?” Minnie said.

“Yes. Isn't it funny—how I'm drunk? What have you got for me tonight, young? old? Maybe Shutzey?”

“You're drunk. You take it easy, or sure as hell Shutzey'll throw you out uf here.”

“He won't—”

“Well, don't you act like no slut. What the hell do you think I pay yu for?”

Then Shutzey came into the doorway with Snookie Eagen behind him. He stood there, lounging against the door jamb, his hands in his pockets, looking at Mary White, and under his gaze she wilted. She felt small and afraid. When he took a hand out of his pocket, she saw the size of the fist. Such a fist could drive into her face, leave only crushed bone.

It wouldn't matter to him. If he knew, that fist would lash out; it would tear the flesh from her cheeks. She felt tears well up inside of her, for herself, and she saw herself holding Peter against her broken face, pressing him to her, and lavishing the smooth skin all over the wounds.

Smiling then because he didn't know, she held her hands against her cheeks and grinned at him.

“The dame's nuts,” Snookie said.

“Lay off her,” Shutzey said to Minnie the storage vault. Then he turned to Mary. “What's eatin' yu?” he demanded. “Ain' I treatin' yu square? Maybe yu think yer a Gilda Grey. You ain't no picture, sister. Where you goin' if I throw yu out?”

“I don't know—”

“Then cut out the drinkin'.”

“Yes.”

He went out, with Snookie Eagen behind him; and once his visible presence was gone, she no longer felt any fear. She leered at Minnie, who stood there, legs spread, arms akimbo.

“You heard him,” Minnie said.

“Yes—I'll work tonight, if you want me to.”

Then it broke, and she began to cry. Minnie stood there watching her, trying to be hard; in her line, you had to be hard. Minnie was saying to herself: “You got to be hard. She ain't no good. She's a broken-down horse, that's all.”

Then Minnie walked close to her. “C'mon, dearie,” she said softly. “You brace up, dearie.”

“All right.”

“There ain't no sense cryin' about it. That ain't no good, dearie.”

“I know.”

Minnie sat down beside her and patted her hand, but thinking that maybe she ought to tell Shutzey to get rid of her, because there was no sense anyway in keeping an old horse like that around. She wasn't any good to work; when a man paid his money, he didn't want someone crying in bed with him.

“Go ahead home,” Minnie said. “You go home and get some rest. You don't worry, because I'll fix it with Shutzey.”

Mary rose and began to put on her clothes. Fixing her hat, she looked at Minnie; then she turned away. She went out of the house, down the steps, and walked slowly toward her house. Whatever happened, it wouldn't be very long now.

She went up to her apartment slowly, hesitated at the door, and then opened it as quietly as she could. From the next room came the sound of Peter playing. Without taking off her coat, she sat down on a chair near the door and listened. She listened, nodded and grew sleepy. She was happy, too. Of late, it was remarkable how quickly her moods changed, from deepest despair to a lofty drunken happiness. Like now. Everything would be all right. Inside of her, she felt it—a certain, sure urge. Everything would be all right.

She wondered what he was playing. Not that she knew much about music. They had a phonograph at Shutzey's house, but whenever she listened to it, she would say to herself: “That isn't music—not the kind I want my Peter to have.” But she didn't know exactly what kind of music she wanted her Peter to have.

She thought that he might have learned it from the new teacher. Herself—she liked the old teacher better. She liked him because he had been aloof and strange, like the music. And what had happened to him? He went away after he killed his wife, simply disappeared, and that was all. Who was his wife? For some reason, she reminded her of Sasha.

Sasha must have heard her come in; now Sasha was coming over to her, moving delicately, as if she didn't want to disturb Peter.

“I'm glad you're back,” Sasha said. She took one of Mary's hands, pressing it to her cheek, crowding up against her. And Mary, putting an arm around her, held her close. Sasha and Peter; afterwards, it would be just the two of them, alone. Always Sasha and Peter.

Mary was happy without being able to understand her happiness;—because it was no longer Shutzey. She had forgotten about Shutzey, sitting there with Sasha and listening to Peter play.

H
ER FATHER
said to her: “Jessie, my darling, sit by me.” Meyer stroked her hair, held her hand, glad for its warmth and its being there. She was as beautiful as the light of coming day, as delicate as a drinking straw made of glass, he thought. And the last. Of all his labor, only Jessie remained. Only Jessie was left to him. But if she married the sort of a man he wanted her to marry, if she bore grandchildren for him …

“I'm an old man,” Meyer said. “I feel it, Jessie, my child. I'm an old man.”

Jessica laughed. She pulled away from him, stood up and looked at him. He was old, and staring at him she could hardly repress a shudder of disgust; but she continued to laugh, wondering what bound him to her.

“Where are you going, Jessie?” he inquired anxiously.

Her mind raced for an excuse.

“Another date?” he asked, almost humbly.

“You'd like him,” she said, “a nice boy.”

“Yeah?”

“He works in a big dress house. You'll see—some night I'll bring him around, so you can meet him, you and mamma.”

“That's nice.”

She went into her room then, dressed herself. She wore a large-brimmed hat because of the rain, and she pulled on overshoes. She was in a hurry, almost frantic with fear, and that without knowing of what she was afraid; only she knew that she must see Shutzey—tell him something, anything.

Then she stopped herself. She sat down on the bed and stared into the mirror; she could just see her head, her beautiful small face, shaded under the hat. She smiled; then she struck her face with her hands, harder than she imagined she could ever strike herself. Small red marks remained, and then the smile gave way to an expression of fear.

“What's the matter with me?” she whispered.

She fairly ran down the stairs. Seeing Mary White, she stopped. Her mother was looking at her. She went over to the counter, stared after Mary, and then turned to her mother.

“What did she want?” Jessica asked.

Bessie shrugged her shoulders. “Does it matter what her kind want?” she said.

Jessica shivered, and her mother put out her hand to her. “Where are you going, Jessie?”

“I'll be home early.”

“In this weather—must you go out?” With the last words, Bessie's voice faded. She was afraid of Jessica. She recalled times when suddenly, almost for no reason, Jessica had surged into hysterical fits of rage. You couldn't tell; and she always had a feeling that Jessica was like high explosive, ready to be touched off. And she was afraid of her. Jessica wasn't like Alice or Marion; she knew that, didn't say anything, only followed Jessica with her eyes as she went to the door.

“Jessie—” It was almost a whisper, and Jessica didn't hear it. She opened the door, stood there, as if she were waiting for someone, and then she stepped out into the rain.

After she had gone, Bessie stood and looked after her. Then she went around the counter and closed the door. She locked it, pulled the shade down to the bottom, and continued to stand there. She was very tired.

When things happen, you don't feel them so much as after; then they bear down like a heavy load, and you feel them in each separate bone. Like a weight, like a tremendous dead weight.

“How tired I am,” she whispered.

She went around the store mechanically, making things secure for the night. Then she took a broom and began to sweep up. “Let Meyer rest,” she thought to herself. “As tired as I am, he's more tired. Let him rest.”

She pushed the broom around and into corners. Then she swept the dirt together, picked it up and dumped it into a basket. Then she stood with the broom, as though she had no idea as to where it belonged, or what to do next. After a while, she put it away; she turned off the lights and went up the stairs.

“Meyer?” she said.

“You locked the store?”

“I locked it.” She sat down near him, folding her hands in her lap. No matter how distracted she was, she always had the ability to appear calm upon the surface; Meyer's worry made a map of his face.

“Maybe you want to go to a movie?” she asked him.

“No—”

“It would be good for you, Meyer.”

“I say no. Go if you want to. Do I have to do something all the time? Ain't it fit that I should sit here for ten minutes and rest? Maybe I don't work hard enough?”