Reverton said impatiently, “I tell you I found this here monkey hanging around out front. He’s a Beeler! He never come here for our own good, I’ll tell you that.” He elbowed Tony. “You tell ‘im, boy: what’s your name?”
“Anton Beeler.”
“How do you like that moniker?” Reverton asked. “That’s some Hunky for you! … What are you doing over here onna peaceful Sunday, boy? How come you ain’t with your own kind, eating a nice dinner if you can steal one?”
Bud came out of the coal bin. He looked as if he had been crying and then had wiped his face with hands that were dirty from coal dust.
“Just what is this, Rev?”
Reverton said to Tony, “You tell the truth, or by God I won’t be responsible for your health.”
Tony shrugged and addressed the man who must be Eva’s father, and because of that he could not tell all the truth, for trafficking with a girl who was too young was a good deal more shameful than setting a fire. “I was just taking a walk,” said he.
“That’s rich!” jeered Reverton. “There’s a whole town of his own to walk in, and even if he would want to come over here, it’s full of plenty other streets.”
Bud addressed him sternly but not unkindly. “Is that right? Did you come over here to start some trouble?”
“No sir.”
“Did you start that fire?”
“No sir.”
Bud asked, “Who did?”
“I didn’t even know anything about it till just now when I was coming over—”
“I guess you think it’s pretty funny, though?” Bud said this in melancholy irony, but Reverton made a strangling sound of rage.
“I just wish I’d been there when you struck the match,” he said. “I’d of blown your goddam hand off at the wrist, you dirty little pup.”
“I didn’t do it,” Tony said, “and I don’t think it’s funny, and I came over here today just on a walk, I swear. I didn’t know where you lived.” He could see nothing of Eva in her father’s face, but when Bud turned and walked to the workbench he was reminded of her stride, which was somewhat irregular. He had previously believed it mere girlish jauntiness.
“I’ll sweat it outa him!” said Reverton.
Bud turned around and told Tony, “You get out of here. You get out of this town. And don’t you come back, or you’ll be in real trouble, and that goes for your father and all the rest of you Beelers. I’m real good friends with the police over here, and I’m going to tell them to look out for any or all of you. This is our town, and we don’t want you in it.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tony. “But—”
Bud pointed a finger in his face. “Don’t you give me any back talk. You just keep your mouth shut and get out of this town.”
Without warning Reverton gave Tony a tremendous shove in the back. “Get going!”
Tony climbed the stairs, Reverton behind him. Eva’s mother was gone from the kitchen when they arrived there. The conversation continued in the front part of the house. It sounded lively and good-humored and was accompanied by the clinking of the silverware against china. This family convocation reminded Tony of the one held after his grandfather’s funeral.
Reverton did not march him through the entire house again. They went out the kitchen door, across the back porch, and down into the yard. There he saw it, a girl’s bicycle with pale blue fenders and a very worn seat: pretty soon the springs would come through and hurt her bottom. He knew it was Eva’s, without knowing whether there were any other girls in the family. She had come home while he was down cellar with the men.
Reverton said, “Now we’re gonna go to the town line, buster, and don’t forget I’m right behind you all the way, and I can draw faster than you can move.”
Suppose she would look out the window!
“I swear I’ll go right back to Hornbeck,” Tony said. “You don’t have to follow me. I give you my word.”
“What’s a Beeler word worth?” Reverton asked the middle distance. “I’d like to know.” He nodded at Tony and patted his coat at the place where he carried his gun. “Get going. I won’t tell you again.”
Tony obeyed. His feeling toward Eva made it impossible for him to think badly even of Reverton, who was her relative and, in protecting the Bullard family from what he honestly believed were its enemies, was guarding her. But Tony couldn’t think of any way to commend the man without incurring his wrath, so he just applied himself quietly to the walk toward the town line and was relieved when his captor chose the closer portion of it, reached through the back streets, rather than that which ran through the contiguous business districts of the two towns.
When he saw the Hornbeck sign ahead—a modest one on this block of industrial garage, empty lots, and back yards of houses so old that one or two still had privies—and looked over his shoulder to check on his captor, he saw nobody close behind him. Furthermore, only two middle-sized kids were in view for an entire two blocks beyond, and farther up the street was only a man burning leaves in the gutter: they had passed him earlier.
So Tony once again had his freedom, a state of which one is ignorant until it is taken away, but the strange thing was that he felt more loneliness than elation. As a captive of the Bullards he had been a sort of member of the family and in a way closer to Eva than he had ever been before, despite his not seeing her at all.
A few blocks from home he turned a corner and saw his brother just ahead. Tony was not really all that close to Jack, though they had shared a room before their sister left home, and were only two years apart, and he did not feel like talking with him now on any subject, let alone his own experiences in Millville. There was not one person in the world who would not think, erroneously, that he had had a disastrous afternoon: not one but perhaps Eva Bullard, if it could be explained, and at the moment he was at a loss for a means of communicating with her.
However, only a lunatic would walk fifteen yards behind his brother without saying anything, and Tony called “Hi” to Jack.
Jack suspected that Tony had shouted to him more than once before getting his attention, and he was briefly unnerved, for he believed it an immutable law that he himself had an awareness superior to the rest of the world’s. He resolved never again to fall into such a deep distraction when he was outside, but to reserve such states for the splendid isolation of his own room.
He returned his brother’s hi. “Did you go to the picture?” It would have been quite possible for them both to have been in the big, crowded theater at the same time without seeing each other.
“Huh?” said Tony. “Oh, yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
The question seemed to take his brother aback. He finally answered, “Oh, sure … You?”
“Not much,” said Jack. “I don’t ever like all that singing and dancing. That’s a girl’s kind of movie.”
“I guess you’re right about that,” said Tony.
Jack complained, “That’s all they ever have there now. It’s never realistic. Some guy starts singing to a girl, and an orchestra begins to play somewhere you can’t even see.”
“Yeah,” said Tony. “That’s right.”
Jack saw a little woolly dog running up the sidewalk toward them, and in the distance he heard a woman’s shrill voice calling it.
“Here comes Mopsy.” In a moment the dog arrived, wagging its entire body violently. “Hi, Mops. Oh you nice dog you.” He bent and petted the animal. The unseen woman continued to cry its name. “You go on home now you bad dog.” He straightened up and pointed, but the dog ignored the order. Seeing that he would pat it no more, it ran on.
When they started to walk again, Tony said, “What I was thinking was maybe you could do me a favor. I would be willing to pay you.”
Jack could assume that his brother meant something other than common domestic chores: those they sometimes traded, usually because of Tony’s football schedule. He practiced every weekday after school, and the games were played on Friday n
ights. Jack did not go in much for what were called “activities” at school, yet in practice he was not as much of a loner as his brother. He always had one intimate. He had just parted from this pal, currently a fellow named Dickie Herkimer.
Tony looked from side to side, as if to make sure they would not be overheard. “This is confidential. You know that Bullard family that Dad had trouble with in their hardware store over in Millville? Well, that store burned down last night, and they are blaming us.”
“Us? You mean the whole family?”
“That’s what I hear,” said Tony, whose eye Jack could see, at an angle, between lens and cheek, in its naked and vulnerable state.
“Where’d they get that idea?”
“How do I know?” Tony asked. “I guess because they had that argument with Dad yesterday and then the fire broke out at night. And the argument had been about him smoking and maybe causing a fire. Maybe it seems too much of a coincidence.”
They were both silent for a while, and then Jack asked, “Did it burn to the ground?”
“I guess.”
“What favor do you want me to do you?” From the corner of his eye Jack could see that the dog Mopsy was returning from wherever it had been.
Tony said, “This is changing the subject, but I met a girl over at one of those park dances in Millville last summer.”
Mopsy had not gone past them but was trotting smartly at Jack’s heels. Jack stopped and pointed down the sidewalk. “Go home, Mops!” The dog ignored him. The woman’s calls could no longer be heard.
Tony said, “I want you to write a letter to this girl I am talking about. I’ll pay you for it. You can write a lot better than me. I never know what to say. You always get good grades on compositions. I remember that thing you wrote about How I Spent My Summer Vacation got an A plus, and it was hung up for Exhibit.”
Jack chuckled. “Boy, I really made up a lot of crap for that! … What did you want me to write about to this girl?” To Mopsy he said, “Go on, Mops, take off.”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Tony. “You know, she’s not snooty or anything, and she ain’t silly.”
“She good-looking?”
“She’s all right,” Tony said. “She’s nice and neat, you know? She’s not phony.” He shook his head. “I just would like to make a good impression on her.”
Jack didn’t understand exactly what was wanted, but his brother was a nice guy. Some people didn’t get along with their brothers at all, but Jack liked Tony, even though he probably wouldn’t have known him had they not been related. But of course the same was true of Jack so far as his father went.
“Sure,” he told Tony. “I guess I could write it. And you won’t have to pay me anything. We belong to the same family.”
They were passing a brick house with a gray concrete porch, the roof of which was supported by more thick, squat pillars than would seem necessary. It was one of the houses Jack most hated to look at. He stopped there and pointed at it for the dog’s benefit.
“Go. There’s your home.”
“Hi there, Tony. Hi Jack. You come on up here, Mopsy!” These words were spoken by an enormously fat woman who emerged from the door of the ugly house and stood between the porch pillars, being more than a match for them. The dog now obeyed her and scampered toward the house. The Beeler boys returned the greeting to Mrs. Munsenmeyer, and she went indoors with Mopsy.
“Boy,” Jack said, “is that an ugly house.”
“I wouldn’t talk so loud,” said Tony, always the cautious one. “Somebody might hear you.”
He was right, but this town was beginning to be too small for Jack. He would have liked to open the door one day and gaze upon a sweep of greensward which gently descended to blue water, or again, undulating prairie as far as the eye could see, or the clustered masts of the Old Port: to mention only a few of the infinite possibilities.
The Beeler residence was just around the corner. The brothers went around to the back door, as was the custom, and entered the kitchen, and there, at the table, was their sister. It was the first time they had seen her with bright red hair.
Jack didn’t know if he liked it or not: it had been sprung on him too quickly. “Hi, Bernice,” said he.
“Hi Jack, hi Tony,” Bernice said. Her mother sat across from her, and before each was a cup with a teabag tab dangling from it. Bernice touched the back of her coiffure, which in addition to being red was frizzed in a funny way. “You like it?”
“Hi, Bernice,” Tony said sadly.
Jack said, “I don’t know yet. It’s different.”
She said, “It’s the latest thing.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jack asked, though not defiantly. “I thought I saw in the newsreel that it was something else.”
“What was?”
“The latest.”
“No,” said Bernice. “This is it.”
“You boys want something to eat?” their mother asked.
“No thanks,” said Tony.
Jack said, “Huh-uh. Say, Bernice, how’s the—”
His mother interrupted. “Is that the way to answer?”
“I’m sorry. No, ma’am, thank you.” He resumed with Bernice: “How’s the movie business?”
She smiled. “I’m outa that line now, Jack. I got me a swell new job as a manicurist. You know where?”
Boy, did that ever sound dreary! At least when she worked as a movie-theater cashier she got to see all the new pictures for nothing. “Naw,” he said.
“In a swell men’s barbershop,” said Bernice. “In the Hotel Continentale. How about that? You oughta come down sometime and see me there, you and Tony too, and I’ll treat you to free manicures. You’re on your own for the haircut, though. They cost too much for me.”
“How much?” asked Jack’s mother.
“Six bits. And then in a place like that you gotta tip, and if you left a dime you might be thought a piker. So it’d cost you a buck or the better part of it.”
Jack screamed, “A buck? For a haircut?“
“That wouldn’t seem anything if you had a lot of dough.” Bernice giggled smugly and plucked the sodden teabag from the cup and deposited it in the saucer. She was wearing the brightest nail polish ever seen on earth, and her lipstick matched it, and she was all powdered and rouged, or whatever.
That Tony remained silent was not unusual, but at the moment he was subtly communicating his impatience to Jack, so the latter said, “Well, see you later, Bernice. Staying for supper?”
“If they’ll have me.”
Her mother said, “Go awn.”
Jack had Bernice’s old room. It was nicer than the one he had always shared with Tony, but Tony wanted to stay in that one, being fixed in his ways, so Jack had been happy to move into the larger, deeper-closeted room, with the better view, among the features of which was a perspective on the private quarters of Mary Catherine Lutz, on the second floor across the alleyway. With his one-dollar drugstore binoculars Jack had more than once seen Mary Catherine in her slip. He had certainly never bragged about this to Tony, who had gone out with her on occasion.
When he and Tony reached the second floor now, Jack said, “I guess you want me to write that letter, huh?”
“If you don’t mind,” said Tony. He followed Jack into the latter’s room.
Jack’s desk had formerly been Bernice’s vanity table. You could take the mirror off it, unscrewing the whole thing frame and all, and he had done that. Though the ivory-colored legs might not seem professionally desklike, the glass top made a nice smooth writing surface.
Jack sat down at the desk, and Tony took the edge of the bed nearby. Jack found a ring notebook in the lefthand drawer and turned to the first clean page and tore it out. He picked up the stub of a pencil.
Tony grimaced.
“What’s the matter?”
Tony asked, “Don’t you think it’d be nice if you opened the rings and took it out, so the holes wouldn’t be all torn?”
“I w
asn’t going to send this piece of paper,” Jack explained. “This is just a worksheet. When we get the letter just the way we want it, then we should copy it on a nice piece of writing paper. You wouldn’t want these lines and holes in the one you send.”
Tony was somewhat embarrassed by his erroneous assumption. He said brusquely, “Oh. Well, how do you think we should begin? ‘Dear Eva’ might be kinda fresh—? Can you say ‘dear’ to someone you don’t know very well?”
“That’s a good question,” said Jack. “But it’s my impression that people in business begin a letter that way to a total stranger. We could ask Bernice. She’d know…. O.K., so we’ll have whatever goes at the beginning. Then what do you want to say?” Jack was hoping to be elegant. To write to a girl was a kind of aristocratic thing to do, as opposed to the plebeian conversation-by-voice: it gave one the opportunity to employ all the otherwise unusable words that one acquired through reading. “What’s she like?”
“Huh?”
“You know, her personal traits of character, like hobbies or extracurricular interests.”
Tony shrugged. “Gosh, I don’t know. She’s just a high-school kid.”
“She would have liked that movie this afternoon, probably,” said Jack. “That was real girl stuff.” He had yet to put down a word. He looked up at the ceiling. “How about, ‘Dear Eva, Do you enjoy the cinema? Speaking for myself, I do.’ “ He looked at Tony and saw him shaking his head. Jack squinted. “It would be better if I knew just what you want this letter to do: just pass the time of day or what?”
“I don’t know,” said Tony.
Jack changed the subject. “Is that right about those Bullards blaming all of us?”
“Yeah.”
“What are they going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Tony said. “But we’re not supposed to go over to Millville, I know that.”
“That’s crazy. I mean, I can’t go over to the bike shop to get an inner tube?”
“Not according to this theory of theirs.”
“How could they get away with that?” asked Jack. “Set up guard posts at every entrance to the town?”
“I don’t know,” said Tony.