The Winter of Our Discontent

  I finished my coffee. "Time to sweep out," I said.

  "You fool me too," Morph said. "If you asked questions I'd be hard to get. But you don't, so I got to tell you. Nineteen twenty-one was the first emergency immigration law."

  "And?"

  "In 1920 he could come in. In 1921 he probably couldn't."

  "And?"

  "So--anyway my weasel brain says--he came in after 1921 by the back door. So he can't go home because he can't get a passport to get back."

  "God, I'm glad I'm not a banker."

  "You'd probably be better than I am. I talk too much. If he's going back, I'm real wrong. Wait up--I'm coming. Coffee's on me."

  "'By, Annie," I said.

  "Come in again, Eth. You never come in."

  "I will."

  As we crossed the street Morph said, "Don't let on to his guinea eminence that I pulled a blooper about him being deportation bait, will you?"

  "Why should I?"

  "Why did I? What's in that jewel case?"

  "Knight Templar's hat. Feather's yellow. Going to see if it can be whited up."

  "You belong to that?"

  "It's in the family. We been Masons since before George Washington was Grand Master."

  "He was? Does Mr. Baker belong?"

  "It's in his family too."

  We were in the alley now. Morph fished for the key to the bank's back door. "Maybe that's why we open the safe like a lodge meeting. Might as well be holding candles. It's kind of holy."

  "Morph," I said, "you're full of bull this morning. Easter didn't clean you up at all."

  "I'll know in eight days," he said. "No, I mean it. Comes nine o'clock on the nose we stand uncovered in front of the holy of holies. Then the time lock springs and Father Baker genuflects and opens the safe and we all bow down to the Great God Currency."

  "You're nuts, Morph."

  "Maybe so. Goddam this old lock. You could open it with an ice pick but not with the key." He jiggled the key and kicked at the door until it finally burst open. He took a piece of Kleenex from his pocket and jammed it into the spring lock's seat.

  I caught myself about to ask, Isn't that dangerous?

  He answered without the question. "Damn thing won't lock itself open. Course Baker checks to see it's locked after the safe's open. Don't blow my dirty suspicions to Marullo, will you? He's too solvent."

  "Okay, Morph," I said and turned to my own door on my own side of the alley, and looked around for the cat that always tried to get in, but he wasn't there.

  Inside, the store looked changed and new to me. I saw things I had never seen before and didn't see things that had worried and irritated me. And why not? Bring new eyes to a world or even new lenses, and presto--new world.

  The leaky valve of the old box toilet hissed softly. Marullo wouldn't get a new valve because the water wasn't metered and who cared. I went to the front of the store and lifted a slotted two-pound weight from the old-fashioned balance scale. In the toilet I hung the weight on the chain above the oaken tassel. The toilet flushed and kept on flushing. I went back to the front of the store to listen and could hear it bubbling and scolding in the bowl. It's a sound you can't mistake for anything else. Then I returned the weight to its bar on the scale and took my place in my pulpit behind the counter. My congregation in the shelves stood waiting. Poor devils, they couldn't get away. I particularly noticed the Mickey Mouse mask smiling down from its box in the pew of breakfast foods. That reminded me of my promise to Allen. I found the extension hand for grabbing things from top shelves and took a box down and stood it under my coat in the storeroom. When I was back in the pulpit, the next Mickey Mouse in line smiled down at me.

  I reached behind the canned goods and brought out the gray linen sack of small change for the cash register, then, remembering something, reached farther until my hand found the old greasy .38-caliber revolver that had been there ever since I can remember. It was a silvered Iver Johnson with most of the silver peeled off. I broke it and saw the cartridges green with verdigris. The cylinder was so sluggish with ancient grease that it turned with difficulty. I put the disreputable and probably dangerous piece in the drawer below the cash register, pulled out a clean apron, and wrapped it around my middle, folding the top over neatly to conceal the strings.

  Is there anyone who has not wondered about the decisions and acts and campaigns of the mighty of the earth? Are they born in reasoning and dictated by virtue or can some of them be the products of accidents, of daydreaming, of imagining, of the stories we tell ourselves? I know exactly how long I had been playing a game of imagining because I know it started with the Morph's rules for successful bank robbery. I had gone over his words with a childish pleasure adults ordinarily will not admit. It was a play game that ran parallel with the store's life and everything that happened seemed to fall into place in the game. The leaking toilet, the Mickey Mouse mask Allen wanted, the account of the opening of the safe. New curves and angles dropped into place, the Kleenex nudged in the door lock in the alley. Little by little the game grew, but entirely in the mind until this morning. Putting the scale weight on the toilet chain was the first physical contribution I had made to the mental ballet. Getting the old pistol out was the second. And now I began to wonder about the timing. The game was growing in precision.

  I still carry my father's big silver Hamilton railroad watch with thick hands and big black numbers, a wonderful watch for time-telling, if not for beauty. This morning I put it in my shirt pocket before I swept out the store. And I checked the time so that at five minutes to nine I had the front doors open and had just taken the first deliberate broom strokes at the sidewalk. It's amazing how much dirt accumulates over a weekend, and what with the rain, the dirt was slush.

  What a wonderful precision instrument is our bank--like my father's railroad watch. At five minutes of nine Mr. Baker came into the wind from Elm Street. Harry Robbit and Edith Alden must have been watching. They backed out of the Foremaster Grill and joined him midstreet.

  "Morning, Mr. Baker," I called. "Morning, Edith. Morning, Harry."

  "Good morning, Ethan. You're going to need a hose for that!" They entered the bank.

  I leaned my broom in the store entrance, took the weight from the scale, went behind the cash register, opened the drawer, and went through fast but deliberate pantomime. I walked to the storeroom, hung the weight on the toilet chain. Hooked the skirt of my apron over the belly band, put on my raincoat, and stepped to the back door and opened it a crack. As the black minute hand of my watch crossed twelve the clock bell of the firehouse began bonging. I counted eight steps across the alley and then in my mind twenty steps. I moved my hand but not my lips--allowed ten seconds, moved my hand again. All this I saw in my mind-- I counted while my hands made certain movements--twenty steps, quick but deliberate, then eight more steps. I closed the alley door, took off my raincoat, unhooked my apron, went into the toilet, took the weight off the chain and stopped the flushing, moved back of the counter, opened the drawer, opened my hatbox and closed and strapped it, went back to the entrance, took up my broom, and looked at the watch. It was two minutes and twenty seconds past nine o'clock; pretty good, but with a little practice it could be cut under two minutes.

  I was only half finished with the sidewalk when Stoney, the chief constable, came across from the Foremaster Grill.

  "Morning, Eth. Gimme a quick half-pound of butter, pound of bacon, bottle of milk, and a dozen eggs. My wife run out of everything."

  "Sure thing, Chief. How's everything?" I got the things together and snapped open a bag.

  "Okay," he said. "I come by a minute ago but I heard you was in the can."

  "It'll take me a week to get over all those hard-boiled eggs."

  "That's the truth," said Stoney. "Man's got to go, he's got to go."

  So that was all right.

  As he was about to leave, he said, "What's with your friend, Danny Taylor?"

  "I don't know--is he on one?"
r />   "No, he looked pretty good, fairly clean. I was sitting in the car. He had me witness his signature."

  "For what?"

  "I don't know. Had two papers but turned back so I couldn't see."

  "Two papers?"

  "Yeah, two. He signed twice and I witnessed twice."

  "Was he sober?"

  "Seemed like. Had his hair cut and a necktie on."

  "I wish I could believe it, Chief."

  "So do I. Poor fella. I guess they never stop trying. I got to get home." And he galloped away. Stoney's wife is twenty years younger than he is. I went back and brushed the larger pieces of filth off the sidewalk.

  I felt lousy. Maybe the first time is always hard.

  I was right about the heavy custom. It seemed to me that everybody in town had run out of everything. And since our deliveries of fruits and vegetables didn't come in until about noon, the pickings were pretty slim. But even with what we had, the customers kept me jumping.

  Marullo came in about ten o'clock and for a wonder he gave me a hand, weighing and wrapping and ringing up money on the cash register. He hadn't helped around the store for a long time. Mostly he just wandered in and looked around and went out--like an absentee landlord. But this morning he helped to open the crates and boxes of fresh stuff when it came in. It seemed to me that he was uneasy and that he studied me when I wasn't looking. We didn't have time to talk but I could feel his eyes on me. I thought it must be hearing that I had refused the bribe. Maybe Morph was right. A certain kind of man, if he hears you have been honest, probes for the dishonesty that prompted it. The what's-he-getting-out-of-it? attitude must be particularly strong in men who play their own lives like a poker hand. The thought gave me a little chuckle but a deep one that didn't even raise a bubble to the surface.

  About eleven o'clock, my Mary came in, shining in a new cotton print. She looked pretty and happy and a little breathless, as though she had done a pleasant but dangerous thing-- and she had. She gave me a brown manila envelope.

  "I thought you might be wanting this," she said. She smiled at Marullo the bright birdlike way she does when she doesn't really like someone. And she didn't like or trust Marullo-- never had. I always put it down to the fact that a wife never likes her husband's boss or his secretary.

  I said, "Thank you, dear. You're very thoughtful. Sorry I can't take you for a boat ride on the Nile right now."

  "You are busy," she said.

  "Well, didn't you run out of everything?"

  "Sure I did. Here, I've got a list. Will you bring things home tonight? I know you're too rushed to put them up now."

  "But no hard-boiled eggs--"

  "No, darling. Not for a whole year."

  "Those Easter bunnies were sure busy."

  "Margie wants to take us to dinner at the Foremaster tonight. She says she never gets to entertain us."

  "Fine," I said.

  "She says her place is too small."

  "Is it?"

  "I'm keeping you from your work," she said.

  Marullo's eyes were on the brown envelope in my hand. I put it up under my apron and stuffed it in my pocket. He knew it was a bank envelope. And I could feel his mind hunting like a terrier after rats in a city dump.

  Mary said, "I didn't get a chance to thank you for the candy, Mr. Marullo. The children loved it."

  "Just good wishes of the Easter," he said. "You dress like springtime."

  "Why, thank you. I got wet too. I thought the rain was over, but it came back."

  "Take my raincoat, Mary."

  "I wouldn't think of it. It's just a shower now. You get back to your customers."

  The pace got worse. Mr. Baker looked in and saw the line of people waiting and went out. "I'll come back later," he called.

  And still they came, right up until noon, and then, as usually happens, all custom stopped. People were eating lunch. The traffic died out in the street. For the first time all morning no one was wanting something. I drank more milk from the carton I had opened. Anything I took from the store I marked down and just deducted it from my pay. Marullo let me have things wholesale. It makes a big difference. I don't think we could have lived on my pay if he hadn't.

  He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms and that hurt, so he shoved his hands in his pockets until that hurt.

  I said, "I'm sure glad you helped out. Never saw such a rush. But I guess they can't go on living on left-over potato salad."

  "You do a nice job, kid."

  "I do a job."

  "No, they come back. They like you."

  "They're just used to me. I've been here forever." And then I tried a little tiny probe. "I'll bet you're looking forward to that hot Sicilian sun. It is hot in Sicily. I was there in the war."

  Marullo looked away. "I don't make my mind yet."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, I been away so long time--forty years. I don't know nobody there."

  "But you have relatives."

  "They don't know me neither."

  "I sure wish I could take a vacation in Italy--without a rifle and a field pack. Forty years is a long time, though. What year did you come over?"

  "Nineteen twenty--long time ago."

  Morph seemed to have hit it on the nose. Maybe bankers and cops and customs men get an instinct. Then another, maybe a little deeper probe came to my mind. I opened the drawer and took out the old revolver and tossed it on the counter. Marullo put his hands behind him. "What you got there, kid?"

  "I just thought you ought to get a permit for it if you haven't got one. The Sullivan Act is a tough one."

  "Where'd it come from?"

  "It's been here all along."

  "I never saw it. It don't belong to me. It's yours."

  "Not mine. I never saw it before either. It's got to belong to somebody. Long as it's here don't you think you better apply for a permit? You sure it's not yours?"

  "I tell you I never saw it. I don't like guns."

  "That's funny. I thought all big Mafia men loved 'em."

  "How you mean, Mafia? You trying to say I'm Mafia?"

  I made a big innocent joke about it. "The way I heard it, all Sicilians belong to Mafia."

  "That's crazy. I don't even know no Mafia."

  I tossed the gun into the drawer. "Live and learn!" I said. "Well, I sure don't want it. Maybe I better turn it over to Stoney. Tell him I just came on it behind something, because that's what I did."

  "You do that," said Marullo. "I never saw it in my life. I don't want it. It's not mine."

  "Okay," I said. "Out it goes."

  It takes quite a few documents to get a Sullivan Act permit-- almost as many as to get a passport.

  My boss had ants. Maybe too many small things had happened too close together.

  The elderly Miss Elgar, the princess royal of New Baytown, came in close-hauled, with a set jib. Between Miss Elgar and the world were two plates of safety glass, a space between. She negotiated for a dozen eggs. Having known me as a little boy, she never thought of me as anything else. I could see that she was amazed and pleased that I could make change.

  "I thank you, Ethan," she said. Her eyes slid over the coffee-grinder and over Marullo and gave equal attention to each. "How's your father, Ethan?"

  "Fine, Miss Elgar," I said.

  "Give him my greetings, that's a good boy."

  "Yes, ma'am. I surely will, ma'am." I wasn't about to reregulate her time sense. They say she still winds the grandfather clock every Sunday night and it has been electrified for years. It wouldn't be bad to be that way, suspended in time--not bad at all, an endless afternoon of now. She nodded gravely to the coffee-grinder before she left.

  "Crazy in the head," Marullo said and screwed his forefinger into his temple.

  "Nobody changes. Nobody gets hurt."

  "Your father is dead. Why don't you tell her he's dead?"

  "If she'd believed me, she'd forget it. She always asks after him. It's not so long ago she stopped inqui
ring after my grandfather. She was his friend, they say, the old goat."

  "Crazy in the head," Marullo observed. But for some reason having to do with Miss Elgar's unusual feeling about time, he had got hold of himself. It's hard to know how simple or complicated a man is. When you become too sure, you're usually wrong. I think, from habit and practice, Marullo had reduced his approaches to men to three: command, flattery, and purchase. And the three must have worked often enough to allow him to depend on them. Somewhere in his dealing with me he had lost the first.

  "You're a good kid," he said. "You're a good friend too."

  "Old Cap'n, he was my grandfather, used to say, 'If you want to keep a friend never test him.' "

  "That's smart."

  "He was smart."

  "All over Sunday I been thinking, kid--even in church I was thinking."

  I knew he had been worried about the kickback, at least I thought he had, so I jumped it out to save him time.

  "About that fine present, huh?"

  "Yeah." He looked at me with admiration. "You're smart too."

  "Not smart enough to be working for myself."

  "You been here how long--twelve years?"

  "That's it--too long. 'Bout time for a change, don't you think?"

  "And you never took none of the petty cash and you never took nothing home without you wrote it down."

  "Honesty is a racket with me."

  "Don't make no joke. What I say is true. I check. I know."

  "You may pin the medal on my left lapel."

  "Everybody steals--some more, some less--but not you. I know!"

  "Maybe I'm waiting to steal the whole thing."

  "Don't make jokes. What I say is true."

  "Alfio, you've got a jewel. Don't polish me too much. The paste may show through."

  "Why don't you be partners with me?"

  "On what? My salary?"

  "We work it out some way."

  "Then I couldn't steal from you without robbing myself."

  He laughed appreciatively. "You're smart, kid. But you don't steal."

  "You didn't listen. Maybe I plan to take it all."

  "You're honest, kid."

  "That's what I'm telling you. When I'm most honest, nobody believes me. I tell you, Alfio, to conceal your motives, tell the truth."

  "What kind of talk you do?"

  "Ars est celare artem."

  He moved his lips over that and then broke into a laugh. "Ho," he cried. "Ho! Ho! Hic erat demonstrandum."