The Devil's Own Rag Doll (9 page)

I picked up Alex's well-used glove and the ball inside it—the same ball I had snagged at the ball game?—and carried it to the other end of the porch. To show the boy that I had found it, I placed it in plain view on top of the upended crate that served as a table on the porch. It took something from me. My legs trembled as I sat down on the glider to wait for Eileen.

*   *   *

By the time we finished the long drive up Gratiot to Mount Clemens, darkness had fallen. I didn't worry about the gasoline, since I had been filling my tank at the department pumps since rationing began. The place was off a dirt road that followed the Clinton River toward the lake from Gratiot. The grass parking lot was just beginning to fill up. Out of each car poured a gang of excited young men and women, unpacked like clowns from their jalopy at the circus. I backed the old Packard into the closest spot I could find and parked it.

No amount of trim or decoration could conceal the fact that the Royal Ballroom had started out as a warehouse. The exposed beams and timbers had been painted and covered with baubles, and three big truck bays had been closed up and hung with shiny fabric, but still the place had the air of industry, which seemed suitable. The band had already started up, just a few skinny youngsters playing what might have been an original tune, though obviously copied from the sound of Jimmy Dorsey's band. It was too loud for me but the commotion of all the dancing and milling about made me feel like I could get lost in the crowd. I wouldn't complain about that.

The small tables near the floor had all been grabbed up by groups of kids dressed as well as the war would allow. A few zoot-suiters mixed in with the crowd, standing out like roosters, but generally the men wore suits that looked like hand-me-downs and the girls wore dresses that might have been homemade. A few of the girls, I noticed, had drawn a line up the backs of their bare legs as if they wore stockings. Since there were no tables available, I pulled Eileen toward a couple of stools at the bar. I put my hat on the bar as a marker.

“I feel out of breath just being here,” said Eileen. She looked off through the smoky room toward the dance floor. “When I was a girl I used to want to be a flapper. I used to cut my hair in bangs like Louise Brooks. That was all the thing in those days.”

I looked her over. I couldn't imagine her as a boyish, flat-figured flapper. The dress she wore had been bought some years before and seemed a little tight, but it seemed modern because the young girls all wore tight skirts and form-fitting dresses now. Some even wore trousers, as they had seen in Hollywood picture magazines, Eileen's dress was cut low over her chest, and her breasts swelled up with each quick breath she drew in.

“You look all right,” I told her. “You look pretty good.”

“Pete,” she said, looking up at me, “you're a charmer, in your own way. Such a gentleman.” She peered again toward the dance floor. “Do you know this number?”

“I can't say so,” I said. “It all sounds the same to me, just jumping music, how the kids like it.” For once I was glad for the small talk, since it kept me from thinking too much about how I could have ended up here with her. I knew it would only be a moment before she took my hand and pulled me to the dance floor, and I knew I'd go with her. Dancing would give me a break from having to say what I knew would come out of my mouth wrong. If she was eager to go out and dance, to have fun, then it was clear that I should step out of the picture. I knew that I was a fright to look at, even without the disfigurements, and few men would dare to show any interest in Eileen with me lurking around.

“Well, Pete, we're not getting any younger sitting here,” she said. She hopped down from the stool and took my hand.

Her hand felt small and warm and damp. We threaded ourselves between groups of standing revelers and tables toward the dance floor, a square area of wooden planks laid over the concrete floor. We walked on in the middle of a number, and I tried to shake some feeling into my old legs as I stepped over the shaky planks. I felt Eileen squeezing my hand as we drew near to an open area of the floor. She turned toward me, and I began to lead her in a fair version of a fox-trot. At least I thought it was fair.

I watched the younger folks dancing and saw that the new dances were largely just variations on the few I had practiced as a spryer man. There were embellishments, sure, lifting moves and spins, and drops to the floor, and I watched the footloose roosters perform with a sense of resignation. It was enough work for me just to keep the beat. I moved Eileen in slow counterclockwise circles over the floor, keeping to the side of my good eye to avoid bumping into anyone. Between numbers, we stood and tried to catch our breath. Though I was sweating heavily, I kept my jacket on. I knew that the leather shoulder rig I wore during the day had left marks like dim smudges on all my white shirts.

Eileen looked happy to me. As she danced, her wavy hair pulled loose from the clips and pins and caught the light that poured down from above the dance floor. She gripped my mangled hand without any flinch or hesitation as we danced and in between numbers, and she smiled up at me, with sweat beading on her upper lip, her neck, between her breasts. I wished she could be ugly. You could talk to an ugly woman. Though she seemed at ease with me and seemed to accept me like family, I could not find my words when I talked to her. Even simple remarks about the progress of the war or the weather just tripped out of my mouth. Her face was sweet. She had some wrinkles starting around her eyes, and her teeth seemed a little big in the front.

It all preyed on me, and it made my throat close up whenever I tried to think of a way to tell her that I could not continue to visit her. I guess I knew that the problem was with me. Sure, I knew it. It wasn't anything in the way she acted. You could see from knowing her that she had come from a good family. She had been brought up right, and there was nothing shifty in the way she behaved. If she squeezed your hand, it was just because she wanted to squeeze your hand. It was all me. I couldn't say if it was the scrabbling way I had been brought up or the things I had to deal with every day or the parts I'd lost. It wasn't just the eye and the fingers gone; in some other way I wasn't a whole man anymore. Somewhere along the line I stopped being straight. There was no way to say if things could ever be straight or simple for me again. But I had seen her face twisted up, torn with grief, and I did not wish to see any of that more than once.

“Okay,” I said finally, “time for a break.” We had danced just a few numbers, short and peppy, but I felt the rubber in my legs and knew that I'd be aching in the morning.

We went to the bar but found only one open stool in front of my hat, so Eileen sat there and I stood close to her crossed legs. After a time I was able to get the bartender's attention, and I ordered drinks. Then I put my hand on the bar and watched the crowd. I watched the young girls and guessed many of them to be underage, high school girls probably, unless things were really different from the days of my youth. I turned my attention to the bartender, who kept a big mug for tips near the cash register. I could see that the youngest boys tipped best to avoid being refused service when they bought drinks for their dates, but I was too tired to be sure how I felt about it. On the one hand, I regretted that such a simple law could be sidestepped two bits at a time. On the other, I realized that if the war dragged on, many of these boys would be called to service, and soon.

“My God, Pete,” said Eileen, “what is it? You look like a cloud just blew over you.”

“A long day, I guess.” I had to lean close to her to be heard over the noise, and I worried that my breath was sour. I picked up my drink and drained the little bit of watery liquid from the overiced glass.

“I'm sorry, Pete. I shouldn't have dragged you here. It was selfish of me, just selfish. You must be so tired.”

“I don't sleep so well,” I said, forcing a smile. “Maybe this'll wear me out enough to have a solid night's sleep.”

“Is it something bad at work?”

“In my work it's all bad,” I said with a shrug. “It suits me.”

“No,” she said. “You're a good man, Pete. You deserve to be happier.” She squeezed my arm just below the elbow I had propped on the bar.

“You're seeing Tommy,” I said. “Tommy was the good one.”
The whole one,
I thought.
The one who could fit in anywhere.

She winced and eased her grip on my arm, but before she pulled her hand away, she smoothed her palm up and down the sleeve of my jacket. We had been leaning close together to be heard over all the noise; now she let a little space open up between us.

“You could find a better way of looking at things, Pete,” she said. “You should ease up on yourself. It's the same world for a gloomy person as it is for a hopeful one. It's still the same world, however you look at it.”

“I can't hear you so well,” I said. “It's so noisy.”

“We'll go, then,” she said. She gripped my arm again, and she put a breezy tone to her voice. “It's already been more fun than I've had in a year. I guess I'll have to teach you something besides the fox-trot, though.”

“I think I danced myself out for this year,” I told her. “I'm glad we came, but—the old bones ain't what they used to be.” In spite of my reluctance, I had to admit that I had enjoyed myself. Anything would have done it, any kind of physical activity, like playing ball or digging a ditch. It was possible to glimpse another world where I might even get more comfortable going out and dancing once in a while. But now, sweating and conscious of the time, my mood dropped suddenly. I knew all of this could not help me to get to the base of things or to make my life any simpler. There was always the shadow of trouble and duty pushing everything else aside.

“We'd better beat it,” I told her. “Early day tomorrow.” I took Eileen's elbow and guided her toward the door, clearing a path with my bulk through the crowded dance hall.

I drove back down to Detroit without saying much. The car had no radio, so Eileen tapped her fingers on the seat beside her and hummed bits of the swing tunes she had heard at the club. I figured she wasn't talking because she had sensed my mood—I had a natural way of killing conversation—but I knew also that she was a woman who could keep quiet. Tommy would not have married a chatterbox. Her hair had been naturally blonde and sun-lightened in her younger days but had darkened now to plain brown. She was short but had a shapely figure, a small waist, and breasts heavy enough to sway when she danced the fast ones.
She could find someone,
I thought.
That's one place I can cut things down to the bone. She doesn't need me coming around so much. Maybe I can set her up with—what! Now I'm thinking like a woman.
I thought,
It'll be enough to tell her how it is.

We pulled up to her house and looked up at the dark windows. I killed the engine.

“I won't walk you in,” I said. “I don't want to set the boy off again.”

“If he's home,” she said.

“If he's home! What business does a fourteen-year-old boy have staying out till midnight?”

“He doesn't listen sometimes. What am I supposed to do? He's bigger than I am.”

I turned a little darker. “Does he push you around?”

“Oh, no. He just doesn't listen. He's a young boy. From what I've heard, you were worse when you were his age.”

“I had a father to whip me up when I didn't stay to the right side of things.” I thought for a moment. “If he gets out of hand, you let me know. I'll stand him up and see if he's as tall as he thinks he is.”

She laid a hand on my arm. “It's not as bad as all that, Pete. He's growing up, and he's a sensitive boy.”

I wanted to pull my arm away but resisted the impulse. She was expecting or hoping that I'd say something reassuring about Alex, I knew, but instead I said, “I have to tell you, Eileen, I don't think it's a good idea for me to come around so much anymore.”

Her eyes fell. “Don't feel like you have to.”

“I don't mean to say it like that. I like coming here. It's the only good cooking I ever get. But it's about time for you to be moving on now that Tommy's been gone for so long.”

“Pete, I'm not what you'd call a spring chicken anymore. I'm not a little girl. You don't have to worry about hurting my feelings or anything like that.” She looked up at me and squeezed my arm. “Don't let anybody tell you different, Pete. You're a good man.”

“I'm not so good.” Though she was making it easy, I felt that cutting loose wasn't going as cleanly as I had planned. I felt like a heel for pulling such a thing right after we had enjoyed a night out. But what else could I have done? Somewhere in the past several years, I couldn't say when, the world had begun to move faster than I could keep track of it. I felt like the world under my feet might shift whenever I walked.

“It's not a pretty world,” I said. “Sometimes things get wrecked. Some people get hit with bad luck. You can't explain it. You can't always see it coming.”

“You don't have to say anything more, Pete.”

“I don't feel like I can ever—” I stopped speaking and looked at her in the dim light. The night had begun to cool, and a warm, thick breeze passed through the open windows of the car. Her eyes were crinkled lightly in a little smile, I guess, or from worry. I drew in a great breath and let it out as I turned toward her, then took her shoulder with my bad hand. Her eyes were calm, even grave. I was thinking that she might rightly be afraid of me or put off by my deformity. But when I found her soft mouth with my own, she did not stiffen or cling too much, and accepted the kiss as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

CHAPTER 6