Songs in Ordinary Time (26 page)

They’d be right on his tail. It was a small town. As soon as Marie reported her car gone, they would know. They knew all his tricks. No sir, he had to stay calm, cool, collected, and he had to keep thinking like them, every minute; just crawl inside the old man’s head to know what he knows and go where he goes, because it wasn’t spilled blood the old thief was tracking down, but a hard-beating, hard-pumping heart he knew as well as his own.

Better to keep the old man pursuing love, a more alluring quarry than death; love to keep the gears turning, to keep them all moving. The old man had faith enough to search forever for his grandson, so Omar would provide the lure, proof that Earlie was still alive, but far, far from here.

He hurried into the kitchen and the boy’s head shot up, his cheek smeared with colored ink. He had fallen asleep, drooling on the open comic book.

“Now listen carefully,” he said, dragging a chair close. “Remember every word I tell you, because I am in very, very great danger, and I need your help.”

Benjy stared, as if peering up from a watery dream.

“It’s not just me,” he whispered, gripping the boy’s arm, demanding, imploring through flesh and bone, his fingertips pulsing a beat of such urgency that for a long time after there would be bruises on the soft white underflesh. “But all of us. We’re all counting on you. So listen to every single word I say….”

I
t was Luther who first heard Benjy. The old man kept walking, each foot lifting with the heft of stone, then falling onto the sidewalk.

“What you want?” Luther asked with the same resignation of the old man’s plodding journey. “You want something?” The whites of his eyes were yellow and hot, and his skin gleamed in the sunshine.

The words died on Benjy’s tongue. Now the old man looked at him. His gold front tooth sparkled. Next to the younger man’s his dark skin seemed 124 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

dull and as drab as if coated with dust. “You live around here, boy?” the old man asked.

“Yes sir.” His reply seemed more gesture than sound. He had never spoken to a black man before.

“You seen this young man around?” the old man asked, moving toward Benjy with his weighted step. The paler palm of his hand cupped a worn tissuey photograph.

It was the picture of a boy not much older than Benjy. He shook his head, then looked up and nodded. It vaguely resembled the man he had seen in the woods that day with Omar.

“When?” the old man demanded, hobbling closer. He reeked of sweat and still dark ponds.

“A couple of weeks ago,” Benjy said, Omar’s carefully chosen words bobbing to the surface now. “Right down there.” He pointed toward the distant woods. “I was on my way home from school, and he came out of the woods, and he asked did I want to buy any magazines, and I said no, I couldn’t, I didn’t have any money, and he laughed, and he said, ‘Money!

You need money?’ And he pulled out this big thick thing of money, of dollar bills in this silver thing that had a
D
engraved on it and…”

“Duvall’s clip!” the young man cried. He looked at the old man and yelped. “That be Duvall’s clip!”

“And Duvall’s cash!” said the old man, so gleefully clapping his hands that he stumbled. Luther steadied him by the back of his shirt. The old man just kept talking. “What he say then? Earlie—what he say?”

“He…he said, ‘Here,’ and he gave me a dollar, and he told me not to tell the big white man in the white suit I saw him because he was on his way down to see his best girl, Laydee Dwelley, in Hankham, Mississippi.”

“Oh my Lord,” gasped the grinning old man. He laid his hands on Benjy’s shoulders. “Try telling me now, there ain’t no divine purpose behind all that we do, Mr. Luther Corbett.”

Luther just shook his head, apparently conceding the old man right, for once.

“His best girl, who is Laydee Dwelley in Hankham, Mississippi.” The old man closed his eyes and sighed. “God did this. God sent this child. And now we’re gonna return the favor, child.” His bloodshot eyes widened.

“That big white man Earlie told you about, his name is Omar Duvall and you ever see him, you watch out, ’cause he is a bad, bad man. He is what you call a treacherous man. He got knives! He got a switchblade with a snakeskin handle and a blade so sharp it can slice through bone, quick as that!” hissed the old man with such a sudden zigzagging thrust of his fist that Benjy jumped.

“You scarin’ him!” Luther said.

“But that’s the favor,” said the old man, drawing back. “Fear. Might just save your life one day, child.”

“What’s your name?” Luther asked, reaching into his pocket. He held out a quarter.

SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 125

“I gotta go now,” Benjy said. He ran away, relieved, because that must have been just the way it had happened that day in the woods, just as Omar had told him. Earlie had stolen Omar’s money, and now he
was
on his way to Mississippi, and he suddenly realized that the glint he had seen that day, that glint through the leaves had not been a blade at all, but the silver money clip they had both been struggling for.

A
t five o’clock Renie LaChance locked the door and pulled the shade over the glass. He opened a can of cat food and another can of sardines and poured more milk into Tom’s bowl. Then he reached under the counter for his slim green ledgers. In one, he printed: 4.50—Mrs. Ottman’s vegetable bins. 2.25—Mrs. Crowley’s reflector pans. That was the ledger the IRS could see. He opened the second ledger and turned the pages. In this one he recorded the day’s cash sales, 12.00—fan. 5.95—lint filter. On the next line he wrote:
Slow day at Cushing’s, only sixty-five customers, approximately $195 by
my estimation. Temperature—83 degrees. Sunny, muggy. Terrible smell. A stink.

Makes some people sick in their stomach. Friday night, Helen hit Sam over the head
with her statue. Police came. Now with Sam gone Helen will get meaner and
meaner to me like always
.

Best news! Alice came in store and picked out the color yellow. Just like the
sunshine! Golden Toastee rep coming to check store next week. I am nervous. If I
get it I will put a sign up that says EXCLUSIVE GOLDEN TOASTEE DEALER in gold
letters and people will come from all over
.

He looked at his watch. Only five-fifteen, the part of the day he least knew what to do with. There was no place for him between five and dinner at six-thirty. In a way it was the loneliest part of the day. All the ladies would be busy now in their kitchens, their hands too greasy or full to pick up their phones, so their children would answer or their husbands. When he had Riddles, this was the time he used to take him for walks. It hurt to remember what Sam had said about Helen burying Riddles, but he couldn’t allow himself such a terrible belief. If it was true, he would have to do something; what, he didn’t know, but it would be not only final, but probably the worst act he’d ever committed. It might even be murder, he realized, shuddering.

Or love, he thought with sudden terror.

All at once he rushed into the bathroom, sat down, and dialed his own number.

“Hello,” came Helen’s crisp voice. “Hello? Hello! Who is this?” And then she hung up.

He called her two more times. She answered, then slammed down the phone when she got no response. On the third call he stared up at his pictures, his gaze swimming in glossy blindness.

“What do you want?” gasped Helen’s thin frightened voice. “Why do you keep calling?”

He touched himself and moaned softly, thinking of the soft white skin on her shoulder.

“Oh,” she said. “You stop! You just leave me alone.”

126 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

He leaned back, legs apart, one hand on the phone at his ear, the other hand gently stroking as he moaned, his eyes closed with her scared little voice in his ear, in his heart, deep, deep in his groin.

When it was over, he watched himself in the mirror as he washed his sticky hands in the small, stained sink and he saw how his eyes glowed and how his cheeks were flushed, and a great wonder seized him because he had never, ever dared do this with any of the others.

He drove home with an ache burning in his chest and the knowledge that he loved his wife very much. As was Helen’s custom when he came through the door, she took his plate from the oven and set it on the table. She never ate, but seemed to live on air, he thought, without need of any bodily functions, not sex, not food, not defecation.

“Sit down,” he said quickly, before she could leave the kitchen.

“Why?” she asked, eyes steeled for the bad news her life attracted.

“Well, I got things to tell you,” he said. From his pocket he with-drew the yellow disk and held it out to her. “For the store,” he said, laying it on the table when she didn’t take it. He told her about the Golden Toastee line and the salesman he expected and the gold-lettered sign, and now he was amazed to hear himself telling her about his surplus of fans, confessing how foolish he had felt all this past year with them jam-packing the storeroom, but then he’d sold one last Friday and another today, so this heat might turn out to be a real lifesaver…
he loved her, loved her fine thin neck and her
slim delicate fingers
…people were drooping with the heat. They’d pay any price for cool air…
he was a lucky man to have such a fine wife
…. “Oh Helen!”

he cried when she took a step toward him.

“Put your plate in the sink,” she said, opening the door. “I’ll be outside weeding.”

B
efore the last car had even left her station, Alice yanked off her shiny black hat and apron and stuffed them in her pocket. Most of the girls were already in the back room smoking with Coughlin. She was relieved and flattered not to have been asked to join them. They knew better, she thought as she waited out at the curb for Norm to pick her up. Her third night here and it had been the worst one yet. Her co-workers were crude and impatient with her, and the customers thought for the price of a root beer they could treat her like dirt. She had mixed up orders again tonight, dropped a full tray, and then at the height of the supper rush the bathroom door had jammed, trapping her inside. “Stupid bitch…stupid bitch,”

Coughlin had ranted as he jimmied free the door to let her out.

It was midnight and only a few cars had been by. She leaned forward with each headlight, hoping it was Norm. She could feel Anthology Carper’s lewd bulbous eyes on her. All night long she’d slid her orders through his window, holding her breath with her eyes averted, her stomach weak at such propinquity, such familiarity with a creature so ugly, so foulmouthed and cruel that last night when she cut her thumb on a broken glass he’d laughed to see the blood.

SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 127

Headlights rose in the distance, and now a low-slung gray Chevy pulled into the lot. Stiffening, she tried to cover the side of her face. It was Blue Mooney here for Carper, who was his cousin. He leaned over to comb his hair in the rearview mirror before he got out of the car. Under the floodlights his full mouth and his eyes seemed to gleam. He glanced back and caught her looking at him. As much as he gave her the creeps, there was also this secret fascination. She would see him strutting downtown with his hoody friends or at the band concerts in the park, and it would be an effort to look away. From the corner of her eye now, she saw him turn quickly. She bit her lip, praying he didn’t recognize her from the lake. For the past two nights she had managed to avoid him. He was behind her now at the greasy order window, speaking in a low voice to his cousin. She heard her name and now she cringed as his boots clicked toward her.

“You’re new here, huh?” he said, grinning.

She nodded, then stared past him at the dark empty road, hugging herself a little tighter.

“I seen you from somewhere, but I can’t place where.” He passed back and forth, studying her from different angles. “It’ll come to me,” he said, snapping his fingers while he peered down at her. “One of these days,” he said, grinning again. “How about you? You remember me from someplace?

I look familiar to you at all?”

“No!” And she knew by his dying grin that he had indeed recognized her and was irritated by her snub. Now she was afraid. He wasn’t just a hood but a thief. Last year he and his older brother, who was on parole, had been caught breaking into Mrs. Bonifante’s gas station. He’d be in jail now with his brother if it hadn’t been for Chief Stoner getting the Judge to let him go into the Marines. Lester had said people weren’t happy he was back in town, even if it was only temporarily. She wondered if Lester had told his father about Mooney threatening him graduation night. Probably.

Behind them rose Coughlin’s angry voice, then Carper’s shrill retort, and now each man simultaneously telling the other what he could do.

“Fuck yourself!”

“Go fuck yourself,” like an ugly echo.

“Jerry’s a creep, huh?” Mooney laughed, then hooked his grimy thumbs in his hip pockets and stretched, arching his back. “I’d put up with that shit for about two seconds.”

She stepped closer to the curb.

“Hey! Need a ride?” he asked, stepping next to her. He gestured at his car. “She’s got glass packs,” he bragged. “Brand new.”

“My brother’s coming,” she said, tensing as he seemed to move even closer.

He nodded. “Hey!” he said, as if it were a sudden brainstorm. “Maybe sometime tell him don’t come, and I’ll give you a ride!”

“Well, he has to. My mother wants him to.” She stared miserably up the street. Where was Norm?

“Oh yah, well, what’re you gonna do, huh? Mothers are like that.” He 128 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

tapped a cigarette from his pack, then offered her one. She shook her head.

“Maybe that’s him,” he said, striking a match with a flick of his thumb.

“Guess so,” he sighed as Norm slowed down.

Her mother’s loud creaky car ground to a stop and she jumped in.

“See you tomorrow night,” Mooney called as they roared off.

She turned now and saw Norm’s bruised cheek and swollen bleeding lip.

Norm and Weeb and Tommy Mullins had been up on Town Line Road chasing parkers when Billy Hendricks and a carload of his friends blocked Norm’s car. Hendricks and Norm had fought in a long, gasping match that had ended only when they were finally dragged apart.