Cathedral

  She’d walked down that morning and asked me could I do her a favor. She wanted me to fix her hair after her lunch shift and have her out in time for her dinner shift. Could I do it? I told her I’d check the book. I asked her to step inside. It must have been a hundred degrees already.

  “I know it’s short notice,” she said. “But when I came in from work last night, I looked in the mirror and saw my roots showing. I said to myself, ‘I need a treatment.’ I don’t know where else to go.”

  I find Friday, August 14. There’s nothing on the page.

  “I could work you in at two-thirty, or else at three o’clock,” I say.

  “Three would be better,” she says. “I have to run for it now before I’m late. I work for a real bastard. See you later.”

  At two-thirty, I tell Harley I have a customer, so he’ll have to take his baseball game into the bedroom. He grumps, but he winds up the cord and wheels the set out back. He closes the door. I make sure everything I need is ready. I fix up the magazines so they’re easy to get to. Then I sit next to the dryer and file my nails. I’m wearing the rose-colored uniform that I put on when I do hair. I go on filing my nails and looking up at the window from time to time.

  She walks by the window and then pushes the doorbell. “Come on in,” I call. “It’s unlocked.”

  She’s wearing the black-and-white uniform from her job. I can see how we’re both wearing uniforms. “Sit down, honey, and we’ll get started.” She looks at the nail file. “I give manicures, too,” I say.

  She settles into the chair and draws a breath.

  I say, “Put your head back. That’s it. Close your eyes now, why don’t you? Just relax. First I’ll shampoo you and touch up these roots here. Then we’ll go from there. How much time do you have?”

  “I have to be back there at five-thirty.”

  “We’ll get you fixed up.”

  “I can eat at work. But I don’t know what Holits and the boys will do for their supper.”

  “They’ll get along fine without you.”

  I start the warm water and then notice Harley’s left me some dirt and grass. I wipe up his mess and start over.

  I say, “If they want, they can just walk down the street to the hamburger place. It won’t hurt them.”

  “They won’t do that. Anyway, I don’t want them to have to go there.”

  It’s none of my business, so I don’t say any more. I make up a nice lather and go to work. After I’ve done the shampoo, rinse, and set, I put her under the dryer. Her eyes have closed. I think she could be asleep. So I take one of her hands and begin.

  “No manicure.” She opens her eyes and pulls away her hand.

  “It’s all right, honey. The first manicure is always no charge.”

  She gives me back her hand and picks up one of the magazines and rests it in her lap. “They’re his boys,” she says. “From his first marriage. He was divorced when we met. But I love them like they were my own. I couldn’t love them any more if I tried. Not even if I was their natural mother.”

  I turn the dryer down a notch so that it’s making a low, quiet sound. I keep on with her nails. Her hand starts to relax.

  “She lit out on them, on Holits and the boys, on New Year’s Day ten years ago. They never heard from her again.” I can see she wants to tell me about it. And that’s fine with me. They like to talk when they’re in the chair. I go on using the file. “Holits got the divorce. Then he and I started going out. Then we got married. For a long time, we had us a life. It had its ups and downs. But we thought we were working toward something.” She shakes her head. “But something happened. Something happened to Holits, I mean. One thing happened was he got interested in horses. This one particular race horse, he bought it, you know—something down, something each month. He took it around to the tracks. He was still up before daylight, like always, still doing the chores and such. I thought everything was all right. But I don’t know anything. If you want the truth, I’m not so good at waiting tables. I think those wops would fire me at the drop of a hat, if I gave them a reason. Or for no reason. What if I got fired? Then what?”

  I say, “Don’t worry, honey. They’re not going to fire you.”

  Pretty soon she picks up another magazine. But she doesn’t open it. She just holds it and goes on talking. “Anyway, there’s this horse of his. Fast Betty. The Betty part is a joke. But he says it can’t help but be a winner if he names it after me. A big winner, all right. The fact is, wherever it ran, it lost. Every race. Betty Longshot—that’s what it should have been called. In the beginning, I went to a few races. But the horse always ran ninety-nine to one. Odds like that. But Holits is stubborn if he’s anything. He wouldn’t give up. He’d bet on the horse and bet on the horse. Twenty dollars to win. Fifty dollars to win. Plus all the other things it costs for keeping a horse. I know it don’t sound like a large amount. But it adds up. And when the odds were like that—ninety-nine to one, you know—sometimes he’d buy a combination ticket. He’d ask me if I realized how much money we’d make if the horse came in. But it didn’t, and I quit going.”

  I keep on with what I’m doing. I concentrate on her nails. “You have nice cuticles,” I say. “Look here at your cuticles. See these little half-moons? Means your blood’s good.”

  She brings her hand up close and looks. “What do you know about that?” She shrugs. She lets me take her hand again. She’s still got things to tell. “Once, when I was in high school, a counselor asked me to come to her office. She did it with all the girls, one of us at a time. ‘What dreams do you have?’ this woman asked me. ‘What do you see yourself doing in ten years? Twenty years?’ I was sixteen or seventeen. I was just a kid. I couldn’t think what to answer. I just sat there like a lump. This counselor was about the age I am now. I thought she was old. She’s old, I said to myself. I knew her life was half over. And I felt like I knew something she didn’t. Something she’d never know. A secret. Something nobody’s supposed to know, or ever talk about. So I stayed quiet. I just shook my head. She must’ve written me off as a dope. But I couldn’t say anything. You know what I mean? I thought I knew things she couldn’t guess at. Now, if anybody asked me that question again, about my dreams and all, I’d tell them.”

  “What would you tell them, honey?” I have her other hand now. But I’m not doing her nails. I’m just holding it, waiting to hear.

  She moves forward in the chair. She tries to take her hand back.

  “What would you tell them?”

  She sighs and leans back. She lets me keep the hand. “I’d say, ‘Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.’ That’s what I’d say.” She smooths the lap of her skirt. “If anybody asked, that’s what I’d say. But they won’t ask.” She lets out her breath again. “So how much longer?” she says.

  “Not long,” I say.

  “You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “Yes, I do,” I say. I pull the stool right up next to her legs. I’m starting to tell how it was before we moved here, and how it’s still like that. But Harley picks right then to come out of the bedroom. He doesn’t look at us. I hear the TV jabbering away in the bedroom. He goes to the sink and draws a glass of water. He tips his head back to drink. His Adam’s apple moves up and down in his throat.

  I move the dryer away and touch the hair at both sides of her head. I lift one of the curls just a little.

  I say, “You look brand-new, honey.”

  “Don’t I wish.”

  THE boys keep on swimming all day, every day, till their school starts. Betty keeps on at her job. But for some reason she doesn’t come back to get her hair done. I don’t know why this is. Maybe she doesn’t think I did a good job. Sometimes I lie awake, Harley sleeping like a grindstone beside me, and try to picture myself in Betty’s shoes. I wonder what I’d do then.

  Holits sends one of his sons with the rent on the first of September, and on the first of October, too. He still pays in cash. I take the money from the boy, cou
nt the bills right there in front of him, and then write out the receipt. Holits has found work of some sort. I think so, anyway. He drives off every day with the station wagon. I see him leave early in the morning and drive back late in the afternoon. She goes past the window at ten-thirty and comes back at three. If she sees me, she gives me a little wave. But she’s not smiling. Then I see Betty again at five, walking back to the restaurant. Holits drives in a little later. This goes on till the middle of October.

  Meanwhile, the Holits couple acquainted themselves with Connie Nova and her long-hair friend, Rick. And they also met up with Spuds and the new Mrs. Cobb. Sometimes, on a Sunday afternoon, I’d see all of them sitting around the pool, drinks in their hands, listening to Connie’s portable radio. One time Harley said he saw them all behind the building, in the barbecue area. They were in their bathing suits then, too. Harley said the Swede had a chest like a bull. Harley said they were eating hot dogs and drinking whiskey. He said they were drunk.

  IT was Saturday, and it was after eleven at night. Harley was asleep in his chair. Pretty soon I’d have to get up and turn off the set. When I did that, I knew he’d wake up. “Why’d you turn it off? I was watching that show.” That’s what he’d say. That’s what he always said. Anyway, the TV was going, I had the curlers in, and there’s a magazine on my lap. Now and then I’d look up. But I couldn’t get settled on the show. They were all out there in the pool area—Spuds and Linda Cobb, Connie Nova and the long-hair, Holits and Betty. We have a rule against anyone being out there after ten. But this night they didn’t care about rules. If Harley woke up, he’d go out and say something. I felt it was all right for them to have their fun, but it was time for it to stop. I kept getting up and going over to the window. All of them except Betty had on bathing suits. She was still in her uniform. But she had her shoes off, a glass in her hand, and she was drinking right along with the rest of them. I kept putting off having to turn off the set. Then one of them shouted something, and another one took it up and began to laugh. I looked and saw Holits finish off his drink. He put the glass down on the deck. Then he walked over to the cabana. He dragged up one of the tables and climbed onto that. Then—he seemed to do it without any effort at all—he lifted up onto the roof of the cabana. It’s true, I thought; he’s strong. The long-hair claps his hands, like he’s all for this. The rest of them are hooting Holits on, too. I know I’m going to have to go out there and put a stop to it.

  Harley’s slumped in his chair. The TV’s still going. I ease the door open, step out, and then push it shut behind me. Holits is up on the roof of the cabana. They’re egging him on. They’re saying, “Go on, you can do it.” “Don’t belly-flop, now.” “I double-dare you.” Things like that.

  Then I hear Betty’s voice. “Holits, think what you’re doing.” But Holits just stands there at the edge. He looks down at the water. He seems to be figuring how much of a run he’s going to have to make to get out there. He backs up to the far side. He spits in his palm and rubs his hands together. Spuds calls out, “That’s it, boy! You’ll do it now.”

  I see him hit the deck. I hear him, too.

  “Holits!” Betty cries.

  They all hurry over to him. By the time I get there, he’s sitting up. Rick is holding him by the shoulders and yelling into his face. “Holits! Hey, man!”

  Holits has this gash on his forehead, and his eyes are glassy. Spuds and Rick help him into a chair. Somebody gives him a towel. But Holits holds the towel like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with it. Somebody else hands him a drink. But Holits doesn’t know what to do with that, either. People keep saying things to him. Holits brings the towel up to his face. Then he takes it away and looks at the blood. But he just looks at it. He can’t seem to understand anything.

  “Let me see him.” I get around in front of him. It’s bad. “Holits, are you all right?” But Holits just looks at me, and then his eyes drift off. “I think he’d best go to the emergency room.” Betty looks at me when I say this and begins to shake her head. She looks back at Holits. She gives him another towel. I think she’s sober. But the rest of them are drunk. Drunk is the best that can be said for them.

  Spuds picks up what I said. “Let’s take him to the emergency room.”

  Rick says, “I’ll go, too.”

  “We’ll all go,” Connie Nova says.

  “We better stick together,” Linda Cobb says.

  “Holits.” I say his name again.

  “I can’t go it,” Holits says.

  “What’d he say?” Connie Nova asks me.

  “He said he can’t go it,” I tell her.

  “Go what? What’s he talking about?” Rick wants to know.

  “Say again?” Spuds says. “I didn’t hear.”

  “He says he can’t go it. I don’t think he knows what he’s talking about. You’d best take him to the hospital,” I say. Then I remember Harley and the rules. “You shouldn’t have been out here. Any of you. We have rules. Now go on and take him to the hospital.”

  “Let’s take him to the hospital,” Spuds says like it’s something he’s just thought of. He might be farther gone than any of them. For one thing, he can’t stand still. He weaves. And he keeps picking up his feet and putting them down again. The hair on his chest is snow white under the overhead pool lights.

  “I’ll get the car.” That’s what the long-hair says. “Connie, let me have the keys.”

  “I can’t go it,” Holits says. The towel has moved down to his chin. But the cut is on his forehead.

  “Get him that terry-cloth robe. He can’t go to the hospital that way.” Linda Cobb says that. “Holits! Holits, it’s us.” She waits and then she takes the glass of whiskey from Holits’s fingers and drinks from it.

  I can see people at some of the windows, looking down on the commotion. Lights are going on. “Go to bed!” someone yells.

  Finally, the long-hair brings Connie’s Datsun from behind the building and drives it up close to the pool. The headlights are on bright. He races the engine.

  “For Christ’s sake, go to bed!” the same person yells. More people come to their windows. I expect to see Harley come out any minute, wearing his hat, steaming. Then I think, No, he’ll sleep through it. Just forget Harley.

  Spuds and Connie Nova get on either side of Holits. Holits can’t walk straight. He’s wobbly. Part of it’s because he’s drunk. But there’s no question he’s hurt himself. They get him into the car, and they all crowd inside, too. Betty is the last to get in. She has to sit on somebody’s lap. Then they drive off. Whoever it was that has been yelling slams the window shut.

  THE whole next week Holits doesn’t leave the place. And I think Betty must have quit her job, because I don’t see her pass the window anymore. When I see the boys go by, I step outside and ask them, point-blank: “How’s your dad?”

  “He hurt his head,” one of them says.

  I wait in hopes they’ll say some more. But they don’t. They shrug and go on to school with their lunch sacks and binders. Later, I was sorry I hadn’t asked after their step-mom.

  When I see Holits outside, wearing a bandage and standing on his balcony, he doesn’t even nod. He acts like I’m a stranger. It’s like he doesn’t know me or doesn’t want to know me. Harley says he’s getting the same treatment. He doesn’t like it. “What’s with him?” Harley wants to know. “Damn Swede. What happened to his head? Somebody belt him or what?” I don’t tell Harley anything when he says that. I don’t go into it at all.

  Then that Sunday afternoon I see one of the boys carry out a box and put it in the station wagon. He goes back upstairs. But pretty soon he comes back down with another box, and he puts that in, too. It’s then I know they’re making ready to leave. But I don’t say what I know to Harley. He’ll know everything soon enough.

  Next morning, Betty sends one of the boys down. He’s got a note that says she’s sorry but they have to move. She gives me her sister’s address in Indio where she says w
e can send the deposit to. She points out they’re leaving eight days before their rent is up. She hopes there might be something in the way of a refund there, even though they haven’t given the thirty days’ notice. She says, “Thanks for everything. Thanks for doing my hair that time.” She signs the note, “Sincerely, Betty Holits.”

  “What’s your name?” I ask the boy.

  “Billy.”

  “Billy, tell her I said I’m real sorry.”

  Harley reads what she’s written, and he says it will be a cold day in hell before they see any money back from Fulton Terrace. He says he can’t understand these people. “People who sail through life like the world owes them a living.” He asks me where they’re going. But I don’t have any idea where they’re going. Maybe they’re going back to Minnesota. How do I know where they’re going? But I don’t think they’re going back to Minnesota. I think they’re going someplace else to try their luck.

  Connie Nova and Spuds have their chairs in the usual places, one on either side of the pool. From time to time, they look over at the Holits boys carrying things out to the station wagon. Then Holits himself comes out with some clothes over his arm. Connie Nova and Spuds holler and wave. Holits looks at them like he doesn’t know them. But then he raises up his free hand. Just raises it, that’s all. They wave. Then Holits is waving. He keeps waving at them, even after they’ve stopped. Betty comes downstairs and touches his arm. She doesn’t wave. She won’t even look at these people. She says something to Holits, and he goes on to the car. Connie Nova lies back in her chair and reaches over to turn up her portable radio. Spuds holds his sunglasses and watches Holits and Betty for a while. Then he fixes the glasses over his ears. He settles himself in the lounge chair and goes back to tanning his leathery old self.

  Finally, they’re all loaded and ready to move on. The boys are in the back, Holits behind the wheel, Betty in the seat right up next to him. It’s just like it was when they drove in here.