Tony blinked behind his glasses. “Yeah, I sure would like to be a policeman.” He shook on it with Harvey.
Harvey always had had a special feeling for Tony, whether or not he was his real dad.
On several of the nights following the death of his father, Jack had been having those dreams which give you the second chance that reality does not allow. In the dreams his dad was still alive but threatening to die if Jack did not change his ways and begin to do more things his father approved of, like giving up reading and daydreaming and taking up sports. So he would get himself a football uniform, helmet, and shoes, and be jogging along on his way to his dad’s bedside—then he would wake up, and nothing was changed.
He hadn’t ever been much interested in his living father, but he realized that what he had always had in the back of his mind was eventually getting to know him better when he, Jack, was somewhat older and more settled. There was no longer any possibility of this. He certainly did not think that his father had been given two heart attacks in succession by reason of anything he had done. On the other hand, he did have a certain suspicion that his father’s life might have been prolonged had he been more satisfactory as a son.
Without explaining why he was doing it, Jack had therefore asked his brother if in Tony’s opinion he could make the football team if he trained all year under Tony’s supervision and went out the following fall.
Tony shook his head. “You’re awful light, Jack.”
“I was thinking of something like quarterback. They’re small guys usually, aren’t they?”
“Only because the linemen are bigger, I guess,” Tony said. “They’re not all that little, and I never seen any as light as you. I wouldn’t want to see you hurt. How could you be a foreign correspondent if your hands got too broke up to pound a typewriter?”
No doubt Tony meant well, but one had to make certain decisions oneself in this world of ours, and when his brother wasn’t around to discourage him Jack went out to the garage with the intention of beginning secretly to work out with Tony’s weights until he was a mountain of muscle.
He started with the dumbbells as currently set up, which turned out to be forty pounds each, and he was unable to lift either one and in fact could hardly budge one at a time using both hands. He found the little wrench and reduced each dumbbell to but a five-pound disc on each end, but ten pounds per hand was still too heavy for him, and he could not find any lighter weights among Tony’s supply.
He decided that it was impractical to try to be what he wasn’t: he might only, as Tony suggested, ruin himself for what he really could do, and then his father would have scarcely been pleased to see him play football badly. If on the other hand he became a famous foreign correspondent he would bring glory to the name of Beeler and make a lot of money with which to support his mother, and for that matter help out Bernice and Tony too if need be.
The other decision he made was (even though, with Bernice’s latest departure, he had regained his room) not to wait endlessly each night for Mary Catherine Lutz to undress. The last time he had done that, it turned out that she never appeared at all, having either gone to bed at an unusually early hour or spent the night away from home. He had stayed on his vigil till almost half-past twelve. He had been making a fool of himself. He never saw much anyway: nothing bare at all, just her in her slip, after which she would go into a closet and then come out in pajamas in which you couldn’t see the difference between her and a boy.
But since that had been his entire life’s sex life, he tried to think of something more decent, more dignified, with which to replace it. He was also lonely in general, for Dickie Herkimer seemed to have faded out and as yet no candidates had appeared for the role of best friend. Perhaps he was simply getting older: more hair was growing in his armpits and around his private parts, and he believed that his voice was getting deeper, though it was still not the rich bass he was hoping to acquire.
He had not forgotten about the young people’s group at the Millville church, to which the fat preacher had invited him and at which he had hoped to meet the clear-faced girl with the big breasts, but enjoying oneself was hardly the thing to do when your father had just died. Nor for several weeks did he follow his inveterate practice, instituted as far back as the seventh grade, of attending the Sunday afternoon matinee at the Hornbeck movie house. He had every intention of going through the remainder of his life without any pleasure, and so to atone for all the times he had displeased his father, and at mealtimes he made every effort to eat heartily.
But finally the Sunday dinner came when his mother said, “You polish off your gingerbread and then why don’t you go to the picture show this afternoon? We’ve got to get back to normal around here.”
“Aw,” Jack said, “we can’t afford it.”
“We can afford fifteen cents.”
They were in the dining room, just as in the days when his father was alive. Tony sat across from him, wearing, as he usually did these days even when he wasn’t on duty, his royal-blue epauleted policeman’s shirt, with a navy necktie. With this he wore the regular pants from his civilian blue-serge suit. He could not afford to buy a real policeman’s coat yet, so for outdoor duty he wore a sweater underneath the shirt and Harvey Yelton’s extra cap, for they had the same head size. Tony was what was called a provisional patrolman, and his pay was ten dollars per week.
Tony now reached into his pocket and produced a nickel, which he handed across the table to his brother. “Get yourself some candy afterwards.”
Jack realized that to turn it down would not be in good form, but he was not entirely happy with the change he had begun to see in his brother, who since becoming a cop was also getting to be something of a stuffed shirt. For example he now proceeded to echo their mother.
“I hope you’re not gonna leave all that gingerbread.”
Jack said, “Maybe I could put it away for later.” He had used up all his appetite, and then some, in swallowing the meatloaf, mashed potatoes, lima beans, and stewed tomatoes.
Tony beckoned to him and said briskly, “O.K.”
“What?”
Tony said impatiently, “You want me to eat it or not?”
“Oh.” He seemed to think Jack should be a mind-reader.
Jack handed the gingerbread over.
Their mother said, “Bring me my pocketbook. It’s on the kitchen cabinet.” Jack did as told, and she went inside it, got out her change purse, and found fifteen cents for him. “Better get going if you want to make the picture on time.”
He glanced at the clock on the sideboard. “You’re sure it’s all right?”
“You mean, can we afford it?” She nodded. “We’ll be doing a little better now, Jack. There’s Tony with his job, and then I rented out the back room.”
For a moment Jack had the crazy idea that an extra room had been discovered in the house. But then he asked, “You mean my room?”
She avoided his eyes. “Well, it really was Bernice’s, wasn’t it? Whenever she came home she always got it. And then Tony says you always like to be back in there with him.”
So this was news only to the younger son! Not only did Tony already know about it, but it might have been his own idea.
Jack was about to leave when Tony said, self-importantly, “I might seeya down the theeyater later on. I might drop around there. I don’t need a ticket, you know. They’re glad to have you if you’re in uniform: it has a good effect. Harvey told me the kids been getting rambunctious on Sundays, lately.”
“Maybe I’ll see you then,” Jack said, hoping the prediction would not come true. He would consider it pretty embarrassing to be seen in such a place with a policeman brother, not long after Halloween had been banned from Hornbeck.
As it happened, if Tony did appear at the theater, Jack failed to see him. Nor did he spot anyone else to whom he was or had been a close friend, though he recognized the Hornbeck kids who were as old as he or older. The movie was a really good one, being abou
t the British in India and having almost all male characters and very little of a love story. It concluded with a tremendous charge by thousands of swarthy mounted men, assaulting a handful of English soldiers standing calmly in a square formation. The latter held their own for a while but were gradually falling away despite having downed enemies too numerous to count. Undoubtedly the white men would have been wiped out had not the British cavalry arrived, pennons flying, through a hitherto secret pass in the mountains.
Jack was always transformed by a picture that so held his attention, and whenever he afterward emerged from the theater onto the main street of downtown Hornbeck he invariably felt somewhat dizzy for a few moments and then pretty depressed.
The day was becoming cooler as the wind picked up. He lifted the collar of his jacket and fastened the top button. It was not the weather for pith helmets and khaki tunics. He was debating whether to spend Tony’s nickel at the nearby candy store, which was jammed at the moment, or to return the money to his brother and so gain a moral victory of a kind, when he saw Her, the girl from the hospital coffee shop. For God’s sake, he had never expected that. And at first he had no idea of how to go about meeting her or what to say, but walking behind her vigorous stride for a block or two—she was alone, like him—it eventually occurred to him that the obvious would be appropriate.
Therefore he quickened his pace until he was even with her on the sidewalk, and he said, “Hi. I saw you at the hospital a couple of weeks ago, I think. In the coffee shop?”
He noticed the blue of her eyes as they grew smaller in a smile. “It probably was, because my father was there. But he’s better now.”
“Mine died.”
She looked carefully at him. “You serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh. It must be lousy not to have a father.”
He realized that the statement was well intentioned. “Yeah…. Do you go to those young people’s things at your church?”
She raised her eyebrows. “How’d you know about that? I’ve been once or twice, but I was embarrassed whenever my brother showed up. I hate to be anywhere he is.”
“Oh yeah?” It seemed they already had something in common.
“He always gets in trouble, is why,” said she. “But he’s run away from home now, so it would be O.K. I guess. If he shows up again, my dad swears he will beat him up and then have him thrown in jail. I might go to the young people’s with my cousin.”
Jack didn’t like the sound of that. “How old’s he?”
“She. She’s almost fifteen. She’s really good-looking. She’s got this long dark curly hair.”
“I guess that’s nice,” said Jack. “But I prefer a lighter color. Not exactly blond, you know, but kinda—”
She looked at the pavement, her cheek coloring slightly. “Like mine?”
“More or less.”
“You’ve got quite a line,” said she.
“What’s that mean?”
“That you’d say anything to a girl.”
He frowned. “I would just say what I thought.”
“Well,” said she, “I happen to be going steady with someone quite a bit older.”
Jack stopped walking. They had almost reached the Millville line. He said, “It was nice knowing you.” He had turned when she spoke.
“I was only kidding.”
He came back. “Or are you kidding now?”
“Take a guess.”
This was awfully silly, and he wouldn’t have been able to admit it to another soul, but he found her the most attractive person he had ever met in his life. He accompanied her on into Millville, and they exchanged good-natured wise-cracks all the way to her house, where, on the front sidewalk, she suddenly punched him in the stomach. Then she ran up the driveway and disappeared around the corner of the garage.
Having followed, he discovered that the structure backed up against the chicken-wire fence of the neighbor in the rear. She therefore must have gone inside through the pedestrian door. He opened that door and stepped inside. No car was there, but a shallow pool of black oil lay in the middle of the floor. She was standing very rigidly in a corner, her spine pressed into the joint between the rough, un-painted wooden walls. He was careful to avoid the oil as he came to her.
He put his hands at her waist. She brought hers to cover his. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, then opened them to display an impudent glint.
“Boy,” she said, “you just think you can get away with anything, don’t you?” She lifted his hands and put them on her breasts, the first he had ever felt. She said, “You’ve got all the nerve in the world.”
He could hardly breathe.
She asked, smiling as if across a great distance, “What’s your name, anyhow?”
He told her.
She howled, “Oh, no!” But she didn’t take his hands away.
“What’s yours?”
“Eva.”
“Eva what?”
“You’ll find out soon enough when my parents come home!” She brought her face so close to his that they seemed to be breathing the same air. She had very sweet breath. She said, “My dad will probably murder you. But I don’t expect them back till suppertime.”
“Well, what is your name?”
She grinned, her face still close to his. “Bullard!”
He stepped back. “I’ll be darn.”
“A real coincidence, huh?” Eva stepped forward, to close the distance he had made between them.
Jack asked, “Are we supposed to hate each other?”
“I don’t know.” This was a kind of squeal. She was grinning more than ever.
“What’s the joke?”
“It’s only that I used to go out with your brother…. What’s the matter? Don’t you believe me?”
He began to back slowly away. “I think I better be going.”
She made a provocative expression, almost but not quite sticking out her tongue at him. “Are you scared he will be jealous or something?”
“Tony? Naw … He’s a cop now, you know. He doesn’t have any time for…” So it was this girl to whom Jack had unwittingly almost written that letter. He decided it would be bad taste to reveal to her that Tony had lately been talking about getting engaged to Mary Catherine Lutz.
Eva stopped stalking him. She stayed where she was and asked, “What’s wrong with you, then?”
He tried to think up a good answer, for himself as well as for her, but the best he could come up with was, “I guess I don’t want to get in any trouble that would jeopardize my profession.”
“Profession? You’re just a kid.”
“Yeah, well…” He had backed all the way to the open doorway now. “Maybe I’ll see you at the movies next Sunday?” That would be on his own ground, in Hornbeck. He stepped backwards over the threshold.
She followed him to the doorway, her hands joined behind her back. Her breasts looked fantastic. She answered, “Not if I see you first.”
Yet he did look for Eva at the movies on subsequent Sundays, but when he finally spotted her again she was accompanied by a Millville boy. Jack suspected he had made a mistake that day in the garage, and he still regretted it, as men do, many years later, though by then he was filing dispatches from the other side of the world.
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