Town Burning (18 page)

“I guess you made a conquest,” John said to Jane.

“A what? Oh, Timmy,” Jane said. She offered him a cigarette at the same time he offered her one, and then, confused, he lit his and forgot hers. He struck another match and held it out to her.

“I’m going to come up and see you,” he said.

“Why don’t you?”

“I’ve got to go to work tomorrow. I promised my father. Maybe I’ll come up tomorrow after supper. Is that O.K.?”

“Sure, Johnny,” she said, “come up anytime. I don’t seem to do anything but sit around nowadays. I guess I’ll get a job pretty soon, too. I can’t stand it much longer just sitting around—that’s why it feels so good to be with the Paquettes again.”

“They do seem to keep ramming around every minute. Hey, Jane?”

She looked surprised. “Hey, what?”

“How about going to a movie tomorrow night? I don’t know what it is. Maybe the drive-in.”

“Sure, I’ll go with you, Johnny.”

“I’ll pick you up around six-thirty, O.K.? I guess they start as soon as it gets dark.”

Good. That had been handled all right. Now everything was settled, and he felt that he had done the right thing, for once. Charlotte came back and sat down, saying that Timmy must have been pretty tired. Bob asked where were the stamps, then where was an envelope, then where in hell was some ink? Ma found them, still talking French to Uncle Albert and Aunt May, and then Bob motioned to John to come outside.

“Look,” he said. He had the catalogue with him, and he pointed to the picture of a set of saddlebags; black leather studded with reflectors, chrome stars and studs of various shapes and sizes. “What do you think of that?”

“They’ll see you coming,” John said.

“What? Why, goddam, John, they’ll see me and hear me! But what do you think of ’em? Tell me, now!”

“I’m no arbiter of taste in saddlebags,” John said.

“No whichiter? Don’t kid me, Jerome!” He grinned and slapped John on the back, half pushing him through one shed, into the place they had cleared for the motorcycle.

“Look at her, boy!” He walked around the motorcycle, feeling it with one hand. “Let’s take her out for a spin. I’ll give you a ride.”

“I don’t know…” John began.

“Aw, come on.” Bob wheeled the machine outside, turned on the switch and kicked down the starter. There was a metallic, chain-rattling, gear-teething sound and a mild pop from the motor. Then he turned the spark handle a little and kicked down the starter again. This time there was a terrible roar and the machine shook and tried to edge forward, then the noise turned into a vibrant, mounting hum of explosions. John thought it would blow up, until Bob straddled it and idled the engine down. “Get on!” he yelled, patting the back of the saddle. “Git on, boy!” He switched on the lights, and across the front yard in the dusk withered grass, two tires set with dirt and flower stalks, a broken toy truck of Timmy’s, and then a huddled group of white mailboxes out at the road’s edge stood out sharply. “Git on!” Bob yelled, turning around impatiently.

John swung his leg over the wide saddle and set his feet carefully behind Bob’s on the narrow, hinged runningboards. Bob moved his wrist quickly on the rubber handlebar-accelerator and the motor roared higher; then he pushed in the clutch. John felt as if somebody had hold of him from behind. Gravel spurted out behind the rear wheel, the seat shifted to one side and pulled out from under him, leaving him stumbling dazedly on the driveway as Bob and the machine swerved on around the curve to the road. Bob continued on around and came up to him again—high laughter over the engine sound.

“You got to hold on, John! Now git on and stay on!”

“Well, take it easy!” John yelled back. This time he set himself firmly and took a firm grip on Bob’s belt in back. “If I go, you go,” he said, and the clutch went in, the wheel spun and they taxied around to the asphalt road, going through the gears quickly as the machine went faster, faster, and then was a projectile flying straight down the narrow road, the headlight bouncing and the motor screaming. In spite of the rushing air he smelled hot oil. The motor warmed his knees while cold air hit him in the face and at the same time climbed up his shirt in back and made him shake wildly from fear and cold. The road bent, snapped around and tilted as they passed a car. He looked over Bob’s shoulder and made out the speedometer through his wind-watering eyes. The needle jiggled around sixty.

“Hey!” he yelled in Bob’s ear, “slow down a little!” Bob looked around at him like an owl, his eyes staring and remote, his face fiercely set. He nodded slowly and just as slowly turned again to face the road and the bits of hurtling trees in the bright tunnel of his headlight’s beam.

John recognized nothing along the road. He had no idea where they were or where they were going until a white sign flashed by: LEAH. Then in quick succession a golden Rotary gear, a Lions emblem, and mailboxes shot by. They hit a bump in the road and for one dreadful moment he flew along an inch above the seat, his feet lost the runningboards, his head began to pound. But soon the fear became strangely constant and bearable, and he didn’t realize just how scared he had been until Bob idled down to go through the main part of town. He had never been so glad to see Leah. They stopped on the square by the Strand to be examined distantly by the young boys who were waiting for the first show to start and by the old men who would watch the people go by until the show started and then go home.

“How’d you like it?” Bob said, still stiff as he turned, with an inner excitement that amounted to intoxication visible in his eyes.

Now that it was over, the fright had gone, except for the hopeless realization that they had to go back to the farm the same way. He was left weak and cold—shivering—and found that he had sweat not only under his arms but all the way up his back to his collar. He got off the motorcycle and stood weakly on the sidewalk. He wanted to sit down. Bob looked at him expectantly.

“What do you want to do on that damn’ machine, commit suicide?” he said.

“By God!” Bob said, zooming the motor for emphasis, “By God!”

“By God is right,” John said, and walked around in a little circle, trying to shake some life back into himself. “Let’s go down to Futzie’s and get a beer or something. I lost my marbles riding that thing.”

“Aw, you liked it,” Bob said.

“Like hell I did!” He got back on the seat. “Now take it easy,” he said. “I can’t stand it. I mean it.”

“You ain’t got over the first thrill yet,” Bob said. They went fairly slow and parked on the sidewalk in front of Futzie’s Tavern on River Street. Bob leaned the motorcycle against a pole so he could keep an eye on it from inside.

River Street, one block of shabby frame buildings, staggered sootily to the railroad spur and a dead end at Cotter & Son’s. Futzie’s and the Army-Navy store were the only live businesses on the street—the rest of the buildings leaned sadly and emptily into each other, old clapboard fronts without decoration or pretension. Most of them had been residences, and Futzie’s building was one of these, odd because of the large window in an aluminum frame next to the wooden Georgian door. A cool blue sign in the window said,
Petrosky’s Tavern,
and below the sign several deer rifles and shotguns hung on a wire rack. Futzie traded guns and would accept nothing else as security against a loan or a drink.

John pulled the doorknob, and the weathered door came open. The front window was Futzie’s only modern improvement. The floor was covered with odd ripped sections of linoleum, worn and faded in places, and in other places, where furniture had covered it in its previous home, bright and colorful. The ceiling was stamped metal in old-fashioned scroll-and-flower designs made hazy by many layers of cream paint. Two light bulbs hung down on long cords, shaded only by dust and grease, and along both sides of the room low brown benches and booths dissolved into a musty twilight. At the bar five silent old men held on to their glasses and stared without expression at television. Futzie leaned against the bar, his shrunken old monkey-face sharp and mean-looking. He never smiled and he never gave a free beer to anybody. When he saw Bob and John he reached for the tap and brought them two beers, standing silently until they put their money on the table. Then he took two dimes and went back behind the bar.

They sat at a booth, Bob facing toward the street so that he could watch his motorcycle. Across from him, John had to watch television. A fuzzy girl with a sharp, domineering voice kept opening and closing the door of a refrigerator, sliding the trays, opening the freezer door, smirking vaguely as if she were looking through a cloud and all the time saying, “See how handy! See how beautiful and economical…decor…modern, wonderful!” and the dark old men, completely absorbed, sipped their beer and watched.

John drank his beer quickly and put two fingers in the air. Futzie must have had an eye in his ear, he thought, because even though he had been half turned away he turned to the taps again and drew more beer.

“Slow down, John,” Bob said.

“That’s what I asked you to do on the way here.”

The door at the right of the bar opened—the one that led to the rooms upstairs. Junior Stevens came into the room and slammed the door behind him. He was halfway to the street when he saw them and stopped in front of the booth.

“How do you like the bike?” he asked Bob.

“Fine,” Bob said, and then looked from Junior to John and back. Junior hadn’t recognized John. Now they looked at each other coolly and nodded.

“Sit down,” Bob said. “You got time for a beer?”

“Why surely!” Junior said, too loudly, and John remembered

with a twinge of childhood that sudden change in Junior from curt silence to loud affability. It generally meant that he was about to hit somebody, or goose somebody, or trip somebody up. Now he watched Junior closely. He finished his beer and signaled to Futzie for three more.

John got up and put some money in the juke box, then sat back to listen, his eyes closed and a cigarette in his mouth.

“Well, hello, Mrs. Jones!” Junior said. John opened his eyes and saw Billy Muldrow, tall and wide shouldered in his dirty overalls, standing diffidently by the booth.

“Hello, Junior,” Billy said coldly, and looked at John. “Hi, John!”

“Hi, Billy. Have a beer,” John said. But Billy looked guiltily toward Futzie, whose cold eye seemed to chill him.

“I can’t drink, John,” Billy said.

“They got him shut off,” Junior said to Bob. He wouldn’t talk directly to John, not really having recognized him. Billy looked hurt. A chastened giant, he frowned and looked sideways at Junior.

“Yeah,” Junior said, “they figure he ain’t old enough to drink yet.”

“You cut it out!” Billy said.

“Hey, leave him alone,” Bob said, smiling. “Why did they shut you off, Billy?”

“Oh, he don’t want to talk about that,” Junior said, “does he, Bob?” Bob shook his head. Junior had hold and wouldn’t let go. “Like this, Billy, warn’t it? Let me see if I got it straight. You was in the movies one night, sucking on a bottle…”

“So what? You be quiet!” Billy shouted. He looked as if he were going to cry.

“Hey,” Futzie said warningly. Even the five old men had turned around on their stools to see.

“Hey, what, Futzie?” Billy said plaintively.

“Don’t make no trouble in my place,” Futzie said.

“He’s not making trouble,” John said.

“Well, don’t make none.”

Billy stood facing Futzie and the old men as if it were a relief to turn away from Junior.

“You lousy…Futzie! If I had all the money I spent in your place I’d be rich! So what do you care? You got the money, ain’t you? That’s all you care for anybody!”

Futzie, even though he had often claimed to have been proud of exactly this philosophy, acted now as if his soul were in jeopardy. John watched his anger develop. Junior and Bob turned around to watch.

“I got a business!” Futzie began. “I don’t lose my license for you or no bum!”

“I ain’t no bum!” Billy yelled. “I pay my bills, you son of a bitch! I don’t owe you nothing,” he added in a lower voice.

“You ain’t goin’ to. Watch your mouth, too!”

“O.K., O.K.! Just don’t call me no bum,” Billy said. “You watch your own mouth.”

Then it was over, and amazingly Futzie wasn’t even going to kick Billy out. For Futzie it had been a big outburst, but evidently the remark about his coldheartedness had hit him. He was almost conciliatory.

“It ain’t my fault Atmon black-listed you, but I got a business, and you come in here and start a trouble I lose my license. Ain’t nobody in this town give me nothing if I go broke, so goddamit I ain’t no charity, neither.” He turned to washing glasses.

“Old Futzie must be going soft,” Bob said.

“Ask him for a borrow of a dime,” Junior said, “and watch him call his lawyer. Hey, Futz!”

“What you want,” Futzie said, scowling.

“How about a couple on the house?”

“How about last week’s rent you owe me?”

“See what I mean?” Junior said. “That Jew’s got a heart cold’s a nun’s tit.”

“He ain’t no Jew; he’s a Pollack,” Bob said, “I seen him in Church.”

Billy had tapped John lightly on the shoulder and motioned him over across the room. Now they sat across from each other in a booth, and Billy looked embarrassed.

“Remember what you said about coming up to see me, Johnny?” he said. “Well, I guess you got a lot on your mind, what with Bruce sick and all. It ain’t more’n forty rod up Pike Hill to my place.”

“I meant to come up, Billy.”

Billy nodded. “Sure you did, Johnny. I ain’t chiding you none. I was thinking maybe ‘cause they went and closed the woods up maybe you thought it was against the law. It ain’t, though. Pike Trail’s a town road, though they don’t fix it up. It’s a town road right on the map. They can’t keep nobody off it.”

“It’s not that, Billy.”

“I know you got a lot on your mind,” Billy said.

“Yeah, Billy.”

“What I was wondering about, Johnny, was maybe you’d do me a little favor maybe, like if I was to drive you down around the corner of Anna’s store you could go in—I’ll give you the money—and git me a case of beer.” He stopped and looked anxiously at John.