Songs in Ordinary Time (89 page)

“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 434 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

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 SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 435

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.

B
lue 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.

436 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

I
t 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.

She dragged a moldy braided rug into the driveway. Most of this junk had been here when she had moved in. If it weren’t for the soap coming next week she wouldn’t be doing this now, with the million and one other things she had to do. Damn. Where was everyone? She ran into the house and yelled up the stairs for the third time for them to get out there and help her this minute, no ifs, ands, or buts, goddamn it! Footsteps moved overhead.

Doors opened.

She went back out and decided to move most of this stuff out of the way until they could get it to the dump. She began to slide boxes onto the back floor of Norm’s car. She even jammed newspapers and a smelly old shoe under the front seat. In no time at all, she had filled the trunk and every inch of his car, with just enough space left for the driver. There. She shoved in five paint cans.

“What’re you doing?” Norm said as she was forcing the door closed.

“This way when the car’s fixed all you have to do is go to the dump,” she said.

“I can’t believe you put all that junk in my car, Mom.” He threw up his hands and his voice cracked. “I can’t believe some of the things you do!”

He’ll be a good man when he grows up
, she thought, as startled by the realization as by this surge of happiness. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It just seemed like such a good idea. Once I got started I couldn’t stop.” Looking at the packed car now, she burst out laughing.

“Look what she did!” Norm said to his sister and brother, who had just come outside. “She turned me into the pigman. Grondine Carson!”

Now they were all laughing. Even Alice with her hollow eyes. She had lost weight and her hair was dull and stringy. She and Marie still hadn’t really talked about what had happened. Alice spent most of her time in her room, which spared Marie the guilt of having to face her own failure.

“I know!” Benjy said. “You can just have it towed out of here, junk and all.”

“What do you mean, towed? Look, I’m in the middle of fixing it! I got everything all laid out.”

“Admit it, Norm. You have no idea what any of these parts do,” Alice said, her gaunt smile catalyst enough for them to move around the front of the car, holding up parts for Norm to identify.

“That’s a…I forget the name….”

“Oh great, Norm!” Benjy said.

“But it has something to do with the—”

“Motor!” Marie laughed. “Very good, Norm!”

SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 437

“No, no, no, it’s part of the carburetor,” he said.

“And where’s that?” Alice asked.

Norm dropped to his knees. “Let’s see. It’s around here somewhere,” he said, feeling through the tall grass and peering under the car while they laughed. Marie’s eyes met Alice’s. They would talk later, after the soap had come and she could think straight.

By the time Omar arrived they had almost emptied the garage. They had dragged the washing machine box behind Norm’s car and they were filling it with old screens and the bug-infested firewood from the back wall of the garage. Omar was in the house making phone calls to set up deliveries.

Marie had been shocked at the long list of numbers. They were all local calls, he assured her.

“You mean Atkinson? You mean all those people are going to be selling Presto here in Atkinson?” she asked.

“Just one or two are deliveries,” he said. “The rest are potential customers for you. I thought I’d drop off samples.”

Norm and Benjy were still carrying out firewood. Alice was attempting to make shelves with a few warped boards and old bricks. It wobbled, so she took it apart and restacked the bricks. Her determination pleased Marie.

Work had always been her own best therapy. Tomorrow she’d tell her that there’d be no more hiding up there in her room. The hell with what anyone thought. She had to get back to work and earn as much as she could in these last two weeks before school.

She went into the house for rags so she could wash the garage windows.

Omar covered the telephone mouthpiece. “Customer,” he whispered, winking. She patted his cheek, and as he bent toward her, she thought she heard the dial tone.

“Well, you’ll certainly get an invitation to one of the soap parties, then, Mr. Clyde,” he said, and she knew she’d been mistaken. “I don’t know of another cleansing agent like it,” he was saying as she came outside.

“Mom!” Norm warned as she headed toward the garage.

She stopped at the doorway when she realized someone was in there with Alice.

“Please, Alice, please. I need to see you. We have to talk. Please just come in the car with me,” Father Gannon pleaded. He hadn’t shaved and his eyes were sunken in dark circles.

Alice stood before him, eyes closed, head down, her arms folded tightly across her chest. “No,” she said in a small voice.

“Please! I can’t stand this anymore!” he begged.

“And neither can she!” Marie said. “So leave her alone.”

“Mrs. Fermoyle,” he said, spinning around. “You don’t understand.” He held out his hand as if for hers.

“I understand! I understand plenty. You should be ashamed of yourself.

A priest…”

“I am!” he cried. “I am ashamed! But not because I love Alice. I just can’t stand it that she’s been hurt like this.”

438 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“Then leave her alone! Walk out of here! Go! She doesn’t want to see you!” She gestured to Alice, who was crying, her face buried in her hands.

“Alice?” He reached to touch her arm. “Let me help you.”

“No,” Alice whispered, shrinking away.

“Haven’t you done enough harm?” Marie said.

“Alice! Look at me! I’m falling apart! I don’t know what to do,” he panted, pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair. “Tell me what to do! Please, please, please tell me!”

Alice wouldn’t look at him. Marie held her breath, afraid his inferno would consume the hesitant flicker of Alice’s resolve. She looked back as Omar came through the doorway.

“I just want to be with you, is that so wrong? Tell me, is that so bad? I’ll do anything. Whatever you say. What? What is it you want?” he cried, ripping off the stiff white collar and flinging it to the ground. He brought his foot down, stomping as if on some verminous creature he needed to oblit-erate. “There! There! Is that what you want?”

She stood between him and Alice.

“Father!” Omar said, placing his hand on the priest’s heaving shoulder.

“You are out of control! You are harassing this child. You are tormenting her, and I will not allow it for one more moment. You hear me now?”

“I love her.”

“Then leave her alone.”

“I’m sorry,” he kept saying as Omar walked him to the car.

Marie went into the house, sick to her stomach and angry for what he had done to Alice, who was curled up in her bed again with the shades drawn and the sheet over her head. She picked up the phone and called the rectory. When she said her name, the Monsignor said, “Yes. What is it, Mrs.