“Nuts,” Walt said, and he reached for his Burma Shave.
He had always used Burma Shave because he loved the highway signs. Blake loved them too, and sometimes, when they were married, they used to make up jingles as they drove along
Boys with bristles
On their cheeks
Often stay
Alone for weeks.
Burma Shave.
Janes cannot resist
Their cravin’
For a Joe who’s
Freshly shaven.
Burma Shave.
Sometimes, when Blake was quiet for a particularly long time, he knew she was working on what she called a “spicy” one, and pretty soon out she’d burst with some poem where the first word was usually “Virgins” and he’d do what he could to shush her and after a while they’d both start laughing, and as he put the lather on his face Walt could feel himself starting to go, so he quick grabbed the sink with both hands and stared at the hot running water until he was pretty sure he had control.
He heard his brother’s voice then, calling “Egbert,” and Walt checked his eyes to see they were dry and they were and wasn’t that a break, because that was all he needed, to lose control in front of Arnold. Arnold, who was almost as big as P.T., almost as handsome too, and dumb as a barn door but nobody seemed to mind, and those were just four of the reasons Walt despised him. Walt continued to lather his beard, looking in the mirror toward the bathroom door, where Arnold would soon appear and probably say “Berty” and then throw his arm around Walt’s shoulders. And of course Arnold would be smiling. Arnold had a perfect smile, even and winning, and he only used it all the time. Walt picked up his razor, held it under the hot water.
“Berty,” Arnold said from the doorway. He moved into the bathroom, put a big arm around his brother’s thin shoulders. “What’d the doctor say?” Smiling.
Walt cleared the stubble from in front of his left ear, then dipped the razor back under the water. You don’t care what the doctor said. You’re only asking because you know it zings me P.T. tells you things. That’s what you’re really saying: Father confides in me. He favors me. I am the preferable son. “Didn’t see him,” Walt muttered.
“Listen, it’s your life, why should you?” Arnold smiled. “Come for dinner?”
Walt shook his head. “Tell Sheila thanks, I’d really love to, but I can’t. Don’t push it tonight, Arnold, huh? Please?”
“Why can’t you?”
“I just can’t, Arnold.”
“Sure you can. Come on.” Arnold smiled.
“You have an altogether winning smile,” Walt said.
“Don’t get nasty with me, Egbert,” Arnold said, smiling, punching Walt on the arm. Hard. “I’m still your big brother.”
I won’t rub it. On my grave. I swear. “Apologies to all concerned.” Walt commenced to shave again, thinking it was about time for Arnold to get around to asking whatever question it was that had brought him.
“Forget it. Didn’t mean to slug you that hard either.” Arnold turned, moved to the doorway. His back turned, he said, “Say, what do you think about painting the stores?”
“Score one for our side.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Walt said. He shrugged. “I don’t know, Arnold; if they need painting, paint them.”
“I mean different colors.”
“Now you elude me.”
“This guy—” Arnold made a hitchhiking gesture toward downtown St. Louis—“P.T. says I should figure it out. This guy claims that if you paint walls different colors it makes people feel better. They turn a corner in a store, they see a pink wall, they feel better. So they spend more money. I think it’s a lot of crap. What do you think?”
“Are you asking is there psychological validity behind color affecting mood?”
“I’m not asking you anything.”
“Well, there is.”
“Then you think I should paint the stores.”
“I don’t know, Arnold. Why not paint one? If sales go up, paint the rest. If they don’t, don’t.”
“That’s no answer; what kind of an answer is that?” Arnold shook his head. “I don’t know why I bother discussing business with you; you’re never any help.” He smiled, punched Walt on the arm again. “Sheila’d sure love to have you for dinner.” Walt made a smile, shook his head. Arnold smiled back. Then he was gone.
Walt finished shaving and thought about Sheila. God, it was irritating. Here was Arnold, rich and dumb, and he marries a girl who likes dumb rich men. And not only that, but she’s built and gorgeous. Walt envisioned Sheila’s face. Gorgeous was probably the right word, although there were degrees; Sheila wasn’t gorgeous like Imogene Felker had been. Of course, you didn’t find hair like Imogene’s every day in the week, or a face like that either. Walt remembered one night when he’d walked Imogene home once after rehearsal and right out loud he said, “I should have done something!”
Abruptly he held his breath; Arnold might still be hanging around and it wouldn’t have paid to have Arnold hear him talking to himself. He’d been doing too much of that lately, gassing away all alone. “I must stop talking to myself,” Walt said out loud, and he quickly saw the humor in it, so he laughed. Then he dried his face and put on Afta because it didn’t sting, and then he decided to shower, so he did, letting the water tingle him good and hard as he thought about Imogene, about how she put a piece like Sheila in the shade but good, and he wondered why he hadn’t done anything that night, and then he remembered he had been engaged to Blake at the time and that meant something then, but now, showering, he wondered if he had ever made a bigger mistake in his life than in turning on his heels that night with Imogene, just turning and muttering “See ya” with his hands practically roped and tied into his pockets because he knew if he freed them they’d make a grab and he was engaged and wasn’t that a laugh, or didn’t it turn out to be one. He should have grabbed Imogene that night. He should have grabbed her and tried to kiss her and if she’d laughed at him, then let her laugh, he should have taken the chance.
“Nuts!” Walt shouted. “Nuts, nuts, nuts, goddammit nuts!”
“Talking to yourself again,” he said, dousing the shower, drying his spindly body. Walt looked at himself in the mirror. How could you even daydream of making a pass at a girl who looked like Imogene when you were skinny with bad eyes and pimples on your back and a face that was and always had been undeniably funny-looking? Arnold had the looks in the family and Arnold had P.T.’s confidence and P.T.’s size, not to mention everything else in the world except brains.
“And where have your brains got you?” Walt wondered. You were so smart you let Imogene get away and—will you just once and for all please just forget about her?
Walt dressed and went into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed, looking around for something to read. Nothing looked interesting, so he picked up his college senior yearbook and began studying the pictures. He came across a shot of himself in the show he and Branch Scudder had done and he wondered where Branch was from, so he flipped to the index and found that Branch was from Waverly Lane, West Ridge, Ohio, and 23 Williams Street, Portland, Maine, was the address listed for Imogene Felker.
“Now what’d you do that for?” Walt said. Sneak up on yourself. If you want to look up the address some girl had three years ago before she got married, look it up. Memorize it if you want to.
Walt promptly forgot the address.
His stomach rumbled, so he got up and went to the kitchen. Checking the icebox freezer, he found he was running low on Swanson dinners and he reminded himself to call the grocer tomorrow and have some more delivered. Then he opened another can of beer and walked into the living room.
Sitting on the sofa, he reached for the phone and, a moment later, when he had got the long-distance operator, he said, “Listen, here’s the thing: I don’t wanna bother you but I wanna call somebody but she isn’t where I have her being so what do I do?”
/> “Your call, please.”
“That’s what I’m trying to explain. I want to get in touch with this girl I went to school with, college, but she’s not there anymore because I think she got married after graduation to some lawyer from Philadelphia, so she’s probably in Philly, but I don’t know where and I don’t know her husband’s name, do you see my problem? I know where she isn’t; I just don’t know where she is.”
“This is my first week on the job,” the operator said. “Perhaps I’d better give you the supervisor.”
“No-no, please, I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I just want to get in touch with Imogene Felker, except that isn’t her name anymore.”
“Do you have an address for where she isn’t?” the operator said. Then there was a pause. “I really think I’d better let you talk to the supervisor.”
Walt closed his eyes very tight. “Twenty-three Williams Street. Portland, Maine.”
“You wish to speak to an Imogene Felker at Twenty-three Williams Street in Portland, Maine?”
“Yes.”
“Hold the line, please.”
Walt held the line while the operator did all the things that operators do, like getting in touch with other operators and talking to each other like they were really IBM machines, and he began to kick his feet a little because pretty soon he’d have Imogene’s married name and phone number in Philly and then he’d be talking to her and it was always fun just shooting the breeze with Imogene, you didn’t have to worry about being funny or bright or anything when you talked with Imogene, just yourself, that was all you had to be and maybe someday she’d come to St. Louis with her husband and they could all have one hell of a time, sitting around and just shooting the breeze, and he’d show them the town and maybe the Kirkaby stores if they were interested and then he’d take them to dinner to one of the artsy places in Gaslight Square, and Walt kicked his feet higher as he sat there while the operator put the call through and then the operator said “Miss Imogene Felker, please, long distance is calling,” and then someone said “This is she,” and Walt hung up and went to the garage and hopped into his Ford and took off.
As he started to drive he realized it looked as though he was running away from something, but that wasn’t it. It looked like that, sure, but the truth was he hadn’t expected to talk to Imogene personally, at least not that second, and he wasn’t prepared to say much of anything, and if he had spoken to her that’s just what the conversation would have been, not much of anything, and he wanted to talk well when he spoke to her so that he didn’t look like a complete nut, calling her cold after three years. Besides, not only would she think he was a nut, but so would her husband, except that the operator had said “Miss Imogene Felker, please,” and Imogene had said, “This is she” and not “You mean Mrs. So-and-So. I used to be Imogene Felker but I’m not anymore.” “This is she,” Walt said out loud, and it crossed his mind casually that perhaps she wasn’t married and that meant she was Available and so was he, Available, so you really had to prepare like crazy for that first phone call or she’d turn you down cold when you asked to see her again. I better get everything straight in my mind, Walt decided. I better drive a while.
Walt drove.
At first he just cruised along, but then he thought it might be nice to take in a ball game, so he headed for the park, except that when he got there it was empty because it wasn’t time for the game yet and because the Cards were playing in Chicago and that was too bad because it would have been nice on this his first night out to see old Stan clobber one good, just swing that crazy swing of his, uncoil and zap! out of the park. Walt stared at the empty stadium, then turned and drove into town, Maryland Avenue, the nicest of the Kirkaby stores, and he stared at that a while and then he thought (moving again now) about what a fool he was, holing up inside his house the way he’d done. He zoomed on over to the Mississippi and took a look before driving to Kingshighway and the great old pile of stone that had once been his grandfather’s house. It was kind of a museum now (P.T. used it as a tax dodge) and as he stared at it Walt wondered how his mother could ever have been happy growing up in a place like that, a big cold pile of stone, and as he stared at it he realized something: he wasn’t hiding anymore; he was through with all that.
The hiding time was done.
“Son of a bitch,” Walt said happily, and all of a sudden his stomach was rumbling like crazy, so he decided to hit Gaslight Square because it was lively and because he didn’t figure to run into anyone he knew, so he drove there and parked and right away almost ran into Irv and his wife, so he dropped his car keys on the floor and by the time he’d retrieved them they had walked on by. It would have been just his luck, meeting someone, and then he thought that since he’d lived most of his years in St. Louis he knew one helluva lot of people and, besides, Irv had wanted to be a poet once and Gaslight Square was the artsy section of St. Louis (a contradiction in terms?). Walt got out of the Ford and started walking to the corner, but before he got there a hand grabbed his shoulder and Walt jumped and spun around, frightened until he saw that the hand belonged to Muggsy.
“Gladt’seeya,” Muggsy said, doing his best to sound like Phil Silvers. Muggsy’s real name was Montgomery Spanier, Jr., so the Muggsy was not only inevitable but an improvement. Montgomery Spanier, Sr., ran the bank in which Montgomery, Jr., toiled.
“Hey-hey,” Walt said, and then he said “Mrs. Muggsy” to Amy Spanier, a dark, serious girl who had once written a term paper at Indiana University on Edna St. Vincent Millay, which to Walt, in some crazy way, seemed to sum her up. “So how was Europe? Think it’s here to stay? What?”
“Fulla foreigners,” Muggsy said.
“I whoopsed all over Italy,” Amy said. “I was never so glad to get back in my life.” She looked around. “Where’s Blake?” she said then.
“You eaten?” Muggsy said. “Let’s the four of us mangez.”
“Don’t you know?” Walt said. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“Know what? We just got back, Walt. Is everything all right?”
“Yeh, sure, everything’s fine. It’s just that, well, Blake and me, we more or less, you know, decided to pffffffft.” He made the sound and smiled, or tried to, but he only got halfway there because it dawned on him suddenly that he might just go, lose control, right here, on a crowded sidewalk, on a summer night, in the middle of Gaslight Square.
“Well,” Muggsy said. Then he said it again: “Well.” Then he said, “I’m sure as hell sorry.”
Walt nodded.
“I don’t think Walt much wants to talk about it,” Amy said.
“Oh listen, it doesn’t bother me. What bothers me—” and he started doing Peter Lorre—“is I cannot get my hands on the Maltese Falcon. And I must. I must.”
Amy smiled and applauded warmly.
“So let’s the three of us mangez.” Muggsy said. They started to walk. “How the Cards been doing?”
Walt laughed. “Come on, Muggsy, you hate baseball. You’ve hated baseball all your life, so you don’t have to talk about it now because you’re afraid I’ll get all upset or something. I already said it doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t. To tell you the truth, I’m a helluva lot more bothered about our foreign policy than about what happened between Blake and me. Oh, I was bothered, I’ll admit that. I mean, who the hell would I be kidding if I said it didn’t affect me for a little, but hell, I mean, I’ve had time to think now, to adjust to it, so let’s not restrict the conversation to the Cards if you don’t mind. I mean—I mean—I’m sorry,” Walt said. “I’m sorry.”
He took off.
He didn’t say goodbye, didn’t say anything, just bolted for his Ford and when he got in he made like Fangio until he was back in his garage and then in the house and safe, because a man’s home is his castle, bet your ass, and I’m safe in my castle, safe and sound and the shades are down and it’s hot but I got air-conditioning and I got a grocer who delivers TV dinners and I am safe as long as I s
tay right where I am, inside, away, alone, and then the phone began to ring and Walt knew right off who it was, who it could only be, and that was Imogene, because he’d given the operator his name and number, so it had to be Imogene calling back and Jesus, what the hell am I gonna say to her, I gotta say the right thing but I don’t know what the right thing is and if I say the wrong thing I might just as well kiss it all goodbye, kiss Imogene goodbye and I’m Available and so is she, maybe, and I can’t mess up with her again so I can’t stay here because if I do I’ll pick up the phone and it’ll be her and out’ll come the wrong thing so I gotta take off, gotta get outta here, outta here now, gotta get out but I can’t go out, I’m only safe if I stay here but I can’t stay here because I’m not safe if I stay here because the phone keeps on ringing and I gotta say the right thing but I gotta be safe first so I can figure what the right thing is but time is against me, I gotta fly, I’m in a race, a helluva race, and I don’t care if I win, my problem’s not winning, hell, I don’t even know where the finish line is.
“What’s this about New York?” P.T. said. It was midnight, and he was sitting at the dining-room table in his house on Linden Lane, sipping a cup of hot cocoa. He was wearing white pajamas and a great red silk robe.
Walt cleared his throat. “I think you heard me.”
“Yeah-yeah-yeah.” P.T. pointed to the flowers set in a vase in the middle of the table. “Roses,” he said. “I grew ’em.”
Walt nodded.
“You said you were thinking of paying a visit to New York. How long a visit?”
“Permanent.”
P.T. looked at him. “You’d quit working for me and just go?”
“That’s right.”
P.T. blew softly on his cocoa. “You’ve thought about this?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t get it. You’re making decent money, you got challenge, you got responsibilities; what’s wrong with a job like that?”