Naomi worked clandestinely for the sake of the secret itself, not from fear of discovery. She had always been an intensely private person, often when they were girls concealing from Gladys, driving her sister mad, knowledge of, say, where she had disappeared to on Saturday morning (the public library) or Sunday afternoon (the attic, where she read the library books she had hidden). Naomi despised the aboveboard, the revealed, the known, and with the character of Mary Joy, who had no secrets, whose essence was accessible to all, she was complete.
Thus she was happily writing away—Helga’s great bulk, muscular but not obese, was laboring over the recumbent body, trim, lithe, but not skinny, of Mary—when in the rear of the house Buddy fell down the basement stairs.
He missed the first three treads, but struck the fourth with his shoulders and the edge of the fifth with his head, snapped on the whip of his neck, which broke, so that he would probably have been a goner even if he had not continued to descend rapidly to the concrete floor, meeting it finally with the sound, which he did not hear, that a sugar melon might have made if dropped from the same height.
A certain excitement of creation had caused Naomi to gulp more cigarette smoke than could be managed by her windpipe. She coughed elaborately, clearing her irritated throat, obscuring with these noises the sound of Buddy’s fall. Therefore he died in secret, apprising nobody.
chapter 15
CLARENCE THROUGHT the least he could do was say goodbye to the widow who lived down the hall and sometimes fed him. However, on reflection he decided it was more than he could accomplish. Given the aroma in the hallway, it seemed likely she was cooking supper. He had swallowed nothing since the dry baloney sandwich he had as usual taken along for lunch. Leo would on request bring him back coffee and pie from the Greek’s, in which he was himself unwelcome, but Leo had not appeared at the lot that day.
Once Clarence hit the road he would be able to get no hot food until he reached another town with a colored district, and so far as he knew it was solid farmland for a good many miles west. But one thing leading inevitably to another—if she fed him she would, and with justice, expect compensation—he would end up with a full belly and empty balls, in which condition he would no doubt fall asleep and not get started to California until the next morning. By that time the man for whom he worked would be looking for him with a gun.
So he picked up the shopping bag into which he had packed all his possessions except the Sunday suit, which he wore, and sneaked past the widow’s door and down the stairs. He walked the two miles back to the lot, found the ’38 Packard where he had left it after buffing its body to a splendid sheen, unlocked it with the keys from his vest pocket, and slid onto the leather under the steering wheel.
He rolled gravely through the local streets. Buddy had never permitted him to drive a car farther than from the gravel service area into the garage; the machines were brought around from the front lot by the white men. He had no bill of sale, no registration, and no driver’s license. He had however screwed on a set of plates he had taken from Buddy’s personal car that afternoon, replacing them with dealer’s tags on the Sandifer Buick.
For his own credentials he took from the shopping bag a much more useful passport than any made of paper for the alien country through which he would drive for many days: a chauffeur’s black cap, which he had bought with the money Buddy had given him for the pocket watch and flashlight he would not need. There was a clock on the dashboard, for that matter. There was also a radio. He had no idea of how long it would take to reach California, but if he was still on the road next Sunday morning he intended to listen to a religious broadcast.
Laverne knocked for a long time at the door of the convent before noticing the pale rectangle on the brick wall alongside, indicating that a sign had been removed. The place was obviously deserted. She had to walk four blocks, leaving the area of warehouses, lofts, and small wholesalers, to locate a drugstore with a telephone. The directory was missing from the little shelf outside the booth. Also, she did not have a nickel with which to call Information. Neither could she find in her purse a piece of money smaller than a two-dollar bill, gambler’s bad luck. Being a proud, independent sort, she was averse to asking that a note of this denomination be changed without a purchase.
She went to the marble counter and ordered a hot-fudge sundae from the soda jerk, a pimpled teen-aged kid in a white overseas cap, who was closing the containers in the ice-cream wells.
Like Buddy’s son, he blushed when he had to talk to her.
“Sorry, ma’am, the machine that heats the fudge is on the blink.” Suddenly she knew it was one of those days when she would be frustrated in every fucking thing she tried.
She shook her head in the picture hat. “I guess you better tell me what you got. If I wanna banana split you’ll be outa bananas, right?”
He shrugged and looked miserable, throwing one shoulder at the wall clock and his chin towards the prescription department, where some old baldy in a gray jacket was locking drawers and cabinets with an officious clatter.
“It’s closing time, and he likes to be on the dot. Maybe a cherry Coke or something to go?”
Laverne climbed wryly off the stool. “Naw, I never drink on the street. I don’t want to get run in.”
“I’m real sorry.” He looked it.
Laverne gave him a glorious smile. “Gee, kid, it ain’t the end of the world. Buck up.”
“You’re a good sport, ma’am.” He was scarlet from forehead to neck.
Twisting from the waist to emphasize her breasts, she wondered how much longer she could produce that effect on males.
On a whim she mounted the iron footrest of the stool, leaned over the counter, and beckoned to him as if to share a secret. When his wondering face came close enough, she gave him a great big red-hot smooch on the mouth, jumped nimbly down, and left, hips rolling, before you could say Jack Robinson.
Ralph waited forever at Elmira’s, but Margie didn’t show. Imogene Clevenger did though, alone, looking the worse for wear. He had never before noticed that she was somewhat out of proportion from the waist down: her legs seemed shorter than they should have been, given the length of her trunk, and her ankles were rather sturdy. His preference was for the suggestion of vulnerability given by fine bones.
She wore a rumpled skirt and a blouse in which you could see the impression of the big safety pin that secured her slip strap above the right bosom.
Pausing opposite his booth, she smiled in a weird, crinkled way and said: “Hi, Ralph.”
This was unprecedented, and if it had happened a few days earlier Ralph would have been overwhelmed. Now he was rather suspicious. He gave a distant nod.
“Mind if I sit down?” she asked, and then as if in afterthought put a wearily coquettish hand on her hip and simpered.
“Waiting for somebody,” Ralph said, frowning.
“Not Horace Hauser, I hope.” She was so dispirited she had to put a hand on the booth top to support herself. “They just picked up his big brother.”
Her face, which Ralph had previously believed unbearably delicate, now looked beefy. It was also wearing an expression he would have called peevish had her mouth not begun to quiver.
“What for?”
She breathed heavily, her lumpy, ill-defined breasts rising and falling like something in a laundry bag. “For deserting from the Navy.”
“Izzat right?” said Ralph. “How about that?”
She started to slide into the facing seat, slowly, seeking his permission with watery eyes.
“You got to go when my friend comes,” said Ralph.
“Sure thing, Ralph. I don’t want to intrude.”
He thought it might be a good thing to have Margie see him sitting with Imogene when she came in, Margie having been a bit arrogant on the phone to somebody who still had not altogether moved from the position in which he was doing her the favor. You had to keep one-up on women. He would also enjoy throwing Imogene out when the tim
e came.
Imogene put her cheeks in her hands, elbows on the table, and said tragically: “We were engaged.”
“Hmm.”
Defensively she said: “I couldn’t wear a ring because I’m underage and my parents would kill me, but we were, all right.” She wiped her eyes with her short, rather stumpy fingers, the nails flecked with fragments of red polish. “But now I guess they’ll shoot him.”
“Naw,” jeered Ralph. “That’s only in wartime. He’ll just be sent up for a long stretch.”
She dropped her hands and stared. “How long?”
“Oh…” He looked at the ceiling fan, its big blades lazily circulating. “Twenty-thirty years, anyway.” He chuckled. “In the good old days, you know, Captain Bligh and all that, he would have got a hundred lashes and then made to walk the plank or been keelhauled. You know what that was—”
But she did not listen to this historical lore. She murmured, “Oh, God,” and buried her face in her hands.,
“Well, easy come, easy go,” said the sadistic Ralph.
Her grieving countenance emerged. “You swear?” she asked.
Ralph’s compassion was at last mildly stirred, and he changed his tune. “I don’t really know about court-martials in peacetime. Maybe he’ll cop a plea or something and get off light. It’s probably serious but not hopeless, Imogene. You really stuck on that guy?”
She screwed her face up horribly. “I hate him!” She leaned across the table and took his wrist. “You swear you won’t divulge this to a soul, Ralph Sandifer?” Without waiting for an answer, she then said at a low but intense pitch: “He got me in trouble.”
Ralph leaned back, his head against the wall of the booth. He decided it was not decent to gloat publicly on the confirmation of his prediction.
Imogene was still attached to his wrist. “He turned out to be a real rotten egg,” she said.
“So what are you going to do now?”
She lowered her dirty-yellow head almost to the tabletop; he saw the brown roots of her hair. “Kill myself, I guess.”
Ralph pulled his wrist free. He patted her on the scalp, which felt like a bale of hay. “Cut the noise,” he said sharply. “Don’t be a dope. You got to get yourself taken care of.”
She came up for air. “How? I don’t know anything about stuff like that. I never knew anything about the whole business. I just let Lester do what he wanted to. He said he’d beat me up if I didn’t.” She was too desperate to cry. Ralph was grateful for that.
“Well,” said he, “if you want, I’ll look into the matter for you, Imogene. There’s this colored fellow who works for my dad. He used to be a boxing champ. I bet he’d know where you could go and get fixed up. He’s been around, see. I’ll ask him for you, not mentioning any names of course. Probably someplace over there where they’d do that for you and no body’d be the wiser.” He pointed his index finger at her in the well-known gesture of his father.
As he talked on, her tense face relaxed, and when he finished it was almost worshipful. She took his hand again, this time with her fingers into the palm. For a moment he thought she might tickle him there, in the legendary fuck-me signal that Horse was always claiming to get from girls.
“That would be sure swell of you, Ralphie.” She turned her head and peeped at him sidewise. “I always have liked you, but never had the nerve to let on, because I thought you’d think it was fresh. I would of asked you to my parties if I thought you would of come, but I didn’t dare. Some people think you’re stuck up, but I always said no, he’s too sophisticated for the hicks around here, and—”
Seeing Elmira heading their way to take an order, he cut this off. “I’ll get back to you soon on this matter, Imogene. Now, if you don’t mind, my friend is supposed to show up.”
She grimaced in disdain. “Horace isn’t going to show his face tonight, I can guarantee that.” Then her lips protruded as if to whistle, but instead she said softly: “You wanna walk over in the park? I’m real grateful for all you’re doing.”
Ralph got up briskly. She was no longer precisely to his taste, but having been warmed up by the call from bare-breasted Margie, and then left here to cool for an hour, he was not immune to this offer. He had read, in some sex manual Hauser had borrowed secretly from his old man, that women could do it for months after they became pregnant. Also, Imogene had revealed herself as a complete whore to begin with, and he now had total control over her. She was no longer a beauty, but neither was she a dog by any means.
Elmira was not offended that they were leaving without having spent a cent. She merely asked: “Hey, Ralph, didya ask your dad about that car?”
Ralph had forgotten the request, but he said: “Sure did, Elmira, and he’ll see what he can do.”
Imogene took his hand and held it as they walked to the door. He did not look to see what impression this made on the kids in the booths along the route. It might not be good by tomorrow, when everybody would know about Lester; it might not be good right now. But if you had nothing better to do than worry about popular approval, you were a horse’s ass.
However, as he stepped onto the sidewalk, two things happened. The first, to his pride, was a sudden decision that he could not follow Lester Hauser: he might get syphilis. The second was that he saw Margie, leaning forlornly against the outside wall.
He extricated himself from Imogene. “Listen,” he said, “you go on home and get your rest. You got to take it easy in your condition. I’ll see that person tomorrow and let you know what he says.”
He abandoned her with that, and went to Margie, who for all her attitude of distress, was all dolled up in a type of Sunday frilly dress, robin’s-egg blue in the light coming from Elmira’s, and with high heels and silk stockings. And wearing some kind of uplift brassiere, stuffed with Kleenex or socks, because her knockers looked bigger than Imogene’s. In fact, had she not been in a hangdog attitude he might not have recognized her quickly.
Now he was fearful she would think the worst when seeing him with Imogene, but she gave no indication of so doing, her eyes fixed on the pavement. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Imogene had crossed the street and was proceeding, with a voluptuous stride, into the darkened park.
He took the initiative. “So there you are! God, I was waiting inside for an hour.”
She did not raise her head. Another woman in trouble. “Come on,” he said. “What’s eating you now? How’d’ I know you would stand out here?”
Without warning she threw her arms around him and put her head against his chest. “Something awful happened on the way over here. I just can’t get it out of my mind.”
Ralph thought: If she was raped, I know where my father keeps his pistol. But then she did not look disheveled. In fact her hair was clean, brushed, and shining. She was also wearing lipstick that had not been smeared until she pressed her face against his sports shirt, leaving, when he pulled away slightly, a big red blotch.
He noticed another novelty, and wondered that it had taken him so long: she was not wearing her glasses. But there was not that much difference: she had not suddenly become Jane Wyman.
He asked: “Where’s your specs? Don’t you need them any more?” Which in fact was what he always wondered about the Jane Wyman character; gorgeous, true, but blind.
“I took them off!” she wailed. “I don’t want to see any more awful things.”
He took her hand and began to walk.
At the corner she had recovered sufficiently to say: “Aren’t you going to ask?”
“I’m asking.”
She shuddered dramatically and said: “I can’t tell. It’s too horrible.”
“Then don’t.”
She stopped and said indignantly: “You men are all alike. If it was a woman, you’d sing another tune.”
“Margie, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.” Those big tits he saw under the streetlamp couldn’t be her own.
“That terrible man you were with the other day, comi
ng out of the Greek’s. I mean, he was there and so was I, but he left first and you were talking to him when I came out. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah, Leo. He’s not terrible. He’s a nice guy. Works for my father. His mother just died. Funny you should mention him. I was just over there. He had her laid out on a sofa. That was weird, I grant you, but you can’t shoot him for that.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Margie, who furthermore seemed to be wearing some orangey pancake make-up like an older woman; it darkened her complexion but did hide the discolorations left by acne. “I was on my way here, peacefully walking along the street, passing some old house down on Hickory, when I suddenly heard a kind of hissing, you know, ‘Pssst!…Pssst!’ It was getting dark but the streetlights hadn’t come on yet, and there was some rustling noise in a bush. So I stopped and looked, and then this man, this awful man, all of a sudden steps out from behind a bush and says, ‘Hi, girlie,’ And it was that Leo.”
“Yeah,” said Ralph, “he’s been acting peculiarly all day. He’s really upset by the death of his mother--which I guess is reasonable.”
“He was stark naked,” said Margie.
“Wow,” said Ralph. “I didn’t suspect he was that far gone.”
“He was all covered with hair, like an animal.”
“Did he do anything else?”
“No, he ran back in the house when I screamed.”
Ralph shook his head. “Poor devil. He showed me a wax apple he bit when he was a baby.”
Margie reared back, hands on hips. “Poor Leo! He’s a criminal!”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” said Ralph. “He is under pressure.”
“Ralph Sandifer! Are you going to tell me you don’t intend to do anything?”
“What could I do?”
“Ask him for an apology.”