She heard Whit, wistful now, “Lord, I wisht they was some way a letten Tony know it wasn’t no un …”
The tool-and-die man’s angry, hissing “Sh-sh” was all she heard, except his feet down the steps.
She heard a few minutes later Mrs. Miller’s loud laughter in the alley, and was in bed, her face turned to the wall, when Clovis came soon after. He called softly: “Gert, Gert. Old woman, are you awake?”
She lay still until she remembered she did not know how she seemed when asleep. “I recken so,” she said trying to sound sleepy.
“I’m sorry about th knife,” he went on, undressing rapidly. “I come back an got it when you was taken a shower. We hadda keep a score fer setback—an would you believe it they wasn’t a sharp pencil er a knife fer sharpenen in that house? You told me you was goen to bed er I’d a brung it home.” And he sprang into bed, drawing close to her, repeating, “I hadda sharpen a pencil.”
She wanted to knock him out of bed, to cry, “No,” to remind him that Sophronie’s children used pencils for their homework—they sharpened pencils with Sophronie’s kitchen knives. Why did he need a knife with a blade that was long and thin—but strong?
The window was graying up with dawn before his breathing came regularly enough that she dared get out of bed. He had for a long time been restless, talkative, like a man greatly excited, gay almost, as if some weight of trouble had lifted, letting him spring free. Twice she had tried getting up, but some watching deep within him that never stopped even in his sleep made him mutter worriedly, then lift for an instant on an elbow and stare vacantly about him.
The knife was in its proper place on the high shelf. She took it into the bathroom, and standing under the strong overhead light opened it blade by blade. She saw at once that it had been washed: a body couldn’t dry a folding knife—not right away—that is if the handle had been in water. The water got down into the blade pockets and wetted the blades when they were folded back into the handle. Somebody had done a pretty good job—that is on the big blade; it was the little blade that came out dampish.
She stood staring at the open blades; they seemed to move; her hand was trembling; she was tired, was why it trembled. She studied the washbasin; it was speckless white from Clytie’s scrubbing of the night before. She put in the plug, turned the faucet only part way so that the water would come with no sound, and ran in an inch or so of water.
She laid the knife into it; watched, rubbed her eyes, looked again. It had not gone away. Yes, it had; nothing was there. Some red rust, maybe, coloring the water, faintly pinkish, spreading up from the handle at the place where the big blade folded in. The knife had gone deeply; some blood had got into the handle. No, no, it wasn’t blood; man’s blood on her knife. She turned the water on full force; it frothed and bubbled white in the basin, pure white; there was no stain—no stain at all. Why should she think such things? His clothes, hung as always in the hall closet, reassured her; his overalls were clean, like his jacket and his shoes; in stories on the radio there were stains on shoes.
She studied his shoes, his work shoes, stained with oil or grease from the factory, but clean as always; brushed and clean; neat Clovis always had neat shoes, even the soles clean.
She sprang up. Why was she squatting here studying his shoes? There were in the crevices between the thick soles and the uppers a few grains of white sand, glittering and clean. It was like the sand she’d seen by the lake. That was a long time ago—funny the sand had stuck until now. Funny she choked so and her hands were cold; it was the bad air and the coldness of the place, for it was cold now, getting close to winter.
THIRTY-EIGHT
SHE KNEW SHE DIDN’T watch; she saw them without watching—the scout cars driving through the alley. Clovis, she thought, watched too, in the same carefully careless way he would notice his hand when it strayed, as it so often did, to feel the scar on his forehead. It was only a mark now, more white than red, but a clear and noticeable thing that could not be covered by his hat; and seemed like now it worried him more than when he’d first got it. Seemed like, too, the scout cars went more slowly and more often through their little alley than they had used to do; she couldn’t remember, but she was almost certain that back in the summer and in the winter too, the cops had driven mostly through the main alleys.
But maybe she only imagined all that, the way she imagined Clovis noticed his face. It was well, and he’d even got one odd job of tinkering. He’d taken out the engine block of a run-down car, but like back home there hadn’t been much money in it. The man was a friend of Bunkin’s and lived on the other side of town, and for all his traveling and the two days’ time Clovis had charged only twelve dollars. He’d got just half of that in cash, the rest on time, for the man was laid off because of the Flint strike; whatever it was he helped make used Flint parts.
Clovis had left home around five o’clock for three mornings and waited in long lines of men and women in front of factory gates, the lines so long and so early forming, the few workers needed were taken before Clovis ever got through the employment gates. The factories weren’t hiring many to begin with, and with so many soldiers returning, so many Flint men on strike, still others not yet called back after the changeover, and all roaming the town for work, jobs were scarce.
The dozen dolls they had made were stacked in the living room. Enoch had been out several times and sold none. But always he had come home cheerful enough, and filled with reasons for his failure: things didn’t sell well after school because most of the women were busy getting supper, and anyway with the strikes and changeovers, money was a little short.
It was Saturday now, afternoon, and the alley still, for there had been money enough, even in those families affected by the strike, for the afternoon movie. Clytie had earned hers by baby sitting, and Enoch, though he had declared it was a gyp, had helped an older boy deliver papers, working better than an hour running from doorstep to doorstep for only ten cents. But in three afternoons he had made enough for the movie and a sack of popcorn in yellow cellophane, which, he had explained to Gertie, made a body feel that the popcorn was lathered with butter—that is, if he opened and ate it in the dark of the movie.
Gertie was by the sink, thinking of butter as she washed the dishes from the lunch of potato soup and toast. The children had loved the soup, made with some of Bunkin’s onions and potatoes and milk. They’d be out of milk before Monday, and Enoch would want to run up to Zedke’s for more. She wouldn’t let him go, for even with credit from Joe and the milkman, and being as chinchy as she could, Zedke’s bill must be close to a hundred and fifty dollars now.
What did a body do when the grocer cut off credit? She stared at the shelf above the sink, and the shelf stared back at her. Next week she’d have to buy more stuff from Joe. Bunkin’s vegetables were all gone, for they had eaten them quickly, eating little but bread and vegetables. The boy would be there smiling at her, proud, showing off his English words like Cassie when she came from school. She hadn’t seen him lately, but that was just because she hadn’t bought anything and hadn’t watched so closely.
She couldn’t stand any longer and stare at the wall; she’d work on the block of wood, and late in the afternoon, just before dark, she’d walk up to Cassie. Not so many people came when the flowers were dead and the days cold.
Turning away from the sink, she saw, without really looking through the glass in the door, the scout car coming slowly down the big alley past Daly’s unit. A policeman had his head stuck out as if he hunted someone.
Mr. Daly, on his stoop picking his teeth, turned to look at the policeman. The policeman must have spoken to Mr. Daly, for he came eagerly down his walk, and the car stopped. Gertie had by now opened the door, soundlessly, and only wide enough to hear Mr. Daly, speaking loudly, say, “Right there he lives.” She heard, too, the satisfaction in his voice as he pointed to her door.
She continued to stand a moment longer; not wanting to be seen; only her eyes slipped side
wise through the glass of the storm door, which she had not opened. She saw the policeman look toward her unit and the police car go on up the big alley, but Mr. Daly stood looking at her door, his face expectant.
She came softly away, leaving the inner door ajar. She remembered her hands were wet from the dishwater, and stood a long time drying them on the kitchen towel. She drew a deep breath, and turned into the passway and looked at Clovis. He was sprawled on the sofa, reading the day-old paper that Victor, after a brief reading, put on their doorstep because strikers never bought papers. Twice she cleared her throat, but even so her words were hoarse and trembling. “Clovis—th police, they’re hunten us.”
He dropped the paper and sat bolt upright, his hand flying to the mark on his forehead as he swung about to look at her. Then he was rigidly still, only his hand dropping from his forehead as he sat staring straight in front of him.
She saw the fear sweat on his face and cried, not meaning to: “He was so young, Clovis, he didn’t know; like if a bunch a men got Reuben into—”
He turned on her, his eyes blazing. “What a you talken about?” he cried, amost screaming. “Who was young?”
“Him,” she said, her own voice shrill, “th one you—” She wouldn’t say it. No, she couldn’t—tongue-tied she was by him as by her mother. Would she in time feel toward him as toward her mother? She couldn’t live with him and feel that way. She stood silent, hands pulling one the other, as she watched him lie down again with the back of his head to the passway as it had been. He remembered to pick up the paper, so that once again he was a man stretched at his ease, reading the paper.
She turned back to the kitchen door; the police, she told herself, didn’t always want people for—They came for all kinds of things. She rushed through the door, down her steps, and into the alley, almost bumping into Mr. Daly. “Du cops is wanten youse,” he said.
“I know. I heard you,” she gasped, running now past Victor’s unit, toward the big alley by the railroad tracks down which the scout car would come. “Did they say,” she called over her shoulder, “was it a accident? My youngens was—”
His smile frightened her again for Clovis, and she stopped and turned part way round and looked at him as he said: “Naw, it wasn’t no accident. It’s yu kid, that biggest boy, they want. Yu gotta learn to keep a tight hand on yu kids.”
“But Enoch ain’t—”
“Youse wouldn’t know,” he interrupted. “Inu public school thataway they’re alla time gitten into meanness—no proper Christian teachings.”
She was weak with relief; some little meanness like a broken window or a rock-dented car. She stood smoothing her apron, looking up the alley, and beginning to be conscious of her shivers, for she had run out without her coat. “No use tu stand an wait,” Mr. Daly said. “Don’t worry, du police’ll find youse—anu kid, too. Dey cun jerk him outta that movie an clap him inu detention home.” His words made her back away with her troubled eyes on him as he went on, explaining, “A detention home’s a place fu real bad kids.”
“But—but he’s ten years old,” she said.
“‘S’plenty old fu trouble,” he said.
Clovis was calling through the broken pane in the storm door, his words an angry hiss. “Gert, git in here you’ll jist, jist”—It seemed a full minute before he could think to add—“freeze.”
“Looks like youse’s both scared,” Mr. Daly said.
“Of what?” Clovis asked, speaking through the broken pane.
“Yu know—cops wanten yu kid.”
“My kid ain’t done nothen,” Clovis said.
Scared as Gertie was for Enoch, she wondered if Mr. Daly had noticed the relief in Clovis’s voice. She started through her gate, but stopped when Mr. Daly said, “Yu needn’t run now; dey’re coming.”
She whirled and saw the car, just turning into the alley. It held two big mean-looking men; hard-hearted men who let her trouble wait while they followed their regular beat round by the steel-mill fence and down by the railroad. She ought to go into the kitchen and wait behind the storm door with Clovis. Then she was running past Victor’s unit again, and had almost reached the corner of the fence when the car came slowly past her with a window rolled down and a policeman craning his head toward her door: “I’m Miz Nevels, th boy’s mama,” she said, turning about, matching her pace to that of the car for the moment or so before it stopped. “Is it anything bad? He told me you was hunten us,” and she nodded toward Mr. Daly without taking her glance from the one who had been driving; he was a heavy-jawed man with the same flat icy-blue eyes as Whit.
“Huh?” he asked, staring at her and then at Mr. Daly while his hand reached into a coat pocket. “Oh,” he said, still fumbling in his pocket. She moved backward against the fence while he finished his fumbling and brought out his hand, the fist closed, “Look, lady,” he said, “don’t be allatime looking fu trouble. Yu gotta bad deal once—but that’s no reason yu’ll git more. Twice I reported that hole.” He stopped and studied her too white face with the boring, blazing eyes under the forehead, wrinkled in spite of the tightly drawn-back hair, with a great effort to understand.
She shook her head slowly, her eyes on the fist, opening now into a cupped palm, thumb and finger pinched together over two one-dollar bills and a fifty-cent piece. She still did not understand as the policeman said, “I betcha kid thought he hada dead-beat cop.” He shoved the money toward her, smiled. “Mu kid got su mad ’twas a sight to see. She tried right off tu take it apart, and when she couldn’t she throwed it at me.”
Gertie’s “Oh,” of understanding came at last in a long relieved sigh, but she did not lift her hand for the money. “He wanted you to have it,” she said. She struggled for words, pulling her fingers. “It ud be kindly hard fer you to understand—but back home in their readers, they was stories about policemen on corners an walken th streets. They’d—that is, them in th stories—why they’d talk to little youngens, an hep em across streets to school. An he thought they’d be sich here. But th policemen here—they’re different, way different frum th books. An so it made him awful proud, you speaken to him thataway.”
They had both listened, patient with her stumbling words, but the policeman was impatient when he said, “Yeah, kids all crazy over cops, but I couldn’t take nothen, not from a kid.” He brushed her hand with the money, and the other, silent until now, glancing now and then at Mr. Daly who had come closer, said:
“Look, mu wife kinda wanted one to send to her little niece fu Christmas—only, she wondered if yucud make it plain, no paint, like a old man used to make um back home.”
“Back home?”
He nodded, smiling, and the other smiled too. “Force’s full a down-homers; he’s from Pikeville, Kentucky.”
Gertie also smiled. “A body ud never know it frum th way you talk.”
“Been gone too long,” he said. “But couldcha make a doll—plain wood with a little whittled face like they used to be—but not for free. Him an me neither, we don’t want no dolls for free.”
Gertie nodded, and the other, still offering the money, motioned toward Victor’s unit. “Didn’cha carve that crucifix we seen there last winter?” And when she had nodded again, he said, “I’d like one like that—some time.” He gave her a quick speculative glance. “But it looked like it was all done by hand. Must a cost a lot?”
She pondered, remembering the jig saw, the sander. “I could make one cheaper, a little less handwork, hard maple stid a walnut, er mebbe I could find some walnut. He liked it so good he give me twenty dollars; but he makes big money in th steel mill.”
The cop nodded sourly. “Can work a double shift on overtime, I bet.” He frowned, studied the address, then spoke to the other, “He’sa one.” He turned back to Gertie. “All them wages, an he’s got neither chick nor child.”
“It’s not his fault; his wife, she—He’s a good man,” she said.
“Sure, it’s th good ones they run out on,” the down-homer cop sa
id.
“Pretty soon,” Gertie said, eager to change the conversation, wondering if Victor had tried to get the cops to find Max, “I’ll git some good wood—somehow. I figger I could make a right nice cross fer five, six dollars, an if you didn’t like it you wouldn’t have to take it.” She would make a cardboard pattern, and Clovis could saw one cross, a hundred crosses—and Christ, too; cheap crucifixes might sell better than cheap dolls.
“Look, lady,” the other cop was saying, “yu make me a crucifix an him a doll—but we may not want um ’fore Christmas. Take this money; we can’t stop all day.”
“But he’ll be disappointed,” she said, reaching. “It made him so proud talken to a policeman.”
“We’ll be seein him,” the driver said, easing his foot from the clutch, moving slowly away as the other said:
“Tell th kid hello for us; he’s a smart kid.”
The driver nodded, stopped the car again, and stuck his head out. “But he’s little, though, just a kid. Don’tcha let um go selling dolls after dark, an—well, kinda warn him, yu know, about going into strange houses or off by hissef, an taking car rides with, yu know—men. Tell um never to go much by hissef.” He was moving again so that his last words were an over-the-shoulder calling; “We’ve had some pitiful cases—little kids, sellen things.”
She didn’t need his loudness, for plainly she heard the mutterings of the other: “She’s hadda rough deal already. Wotta yu wantu scare her more?”
That night she told the children about the nice cops—one from back home, or close to back home. Maybe Enoch, when he’d gone all the way through high school, could be a cop, she said.
“Who wantsa be a cop? They don’t make no money, less’n they’ve got a beat where they can git shakedowns like a feller Jimmy Daly’s pop knows. Why, cops don’t make as much as a plain ’sembly hand.”