I handed him an ordinary kitchen broom, and, standing well out of kicking range, he drew the worn straws slowly between Jack’s buttocks. Jack writhed and shrieked with laughter and rage. Busken tickled him delicately upon the testicles. Jack leaped high into the air.
As Busken worked the tormenting broom—and I have never seen anyone put more enthusiasm into a task—Vail tugged. So, gradually, Jack began to slide across the counter.
Midway in the process, Moon came up and stood watching, neither amused nor unamused. Vail turned to him, inquiringly.
“Want something?”
“How long you going to be busy here?”
“Oh, we’ll have him over in a minute.”
“Better hurry it up. It’s about time for the guard to come around.”
A moment or so later, Jack was pulled inside. He was a wreck. He could do nothing but stand and curse, and even that not very effectively.
“You’d better get on out of here,” observed Moon. “No one’s supposed to be in here but employees of the department.”
“Damn it!” screamed Jack. “Didn’t you see what happened? Do you think—?”
“Well, you go on, now,” Moon repeated. “I’m supposed to keep you fellows out of here, and I’m going to do it.”
Jack went out the gate muttering, tucking in his ruined shirt.
“You come with me, Dilly,” said Moon. “I want you to do some typing.”
I walked around to Gross’s desk with him. “Let Dilly have your stool, Gross,” he said. “I want him to do some typing.”
Gross got to his feet. “I can do it.”
“You go help Murphy take those propellers over to Service.”
Gross reddened. “I thought I was supposed to be the bookkeeper around here.”
“Who said you weren’t?”
“Well—what’re you—why are you— Oh, hell!” He strode off, scowling.
“Now this is a shortage report you’re going to type, Dilly,” said Moon, handing me two hand-inscribed pieces of paper. “A first-release shortage report. The first release is for twenty-five ships, the second for fifty, and so on. As we really get organized and step up production the size of the releases gets bigger.”
“Then, this shortage report,” I said, “it’s intended to show the parts you need to complete twenty-five ships?”
“That’s it. Ordinarily you’d have to take the shortages from the books, but since you’re new, I’ve done it. Look. Here’s your first item—a bulkhead bracket, Number F-1198. We use four of those to a ship. We’ve issued forty to Final Assembly, and we have forty-three in stock. That gives us a shortage of seventeen. Twenty-five ships would require a hundred parts, and eighty-three from a hundred leaves seventeen.”
“I get it,” I said.
“Good. Give me an original and four copies, and let’s see how fast you can turn them out.”
I scoured my hands on my pants, fitted carbon and paper into the typewriter, and got to work. I was nervous, naturally, and the typewriter wasn’t all it should have been. But I knocked out that shortage report—composed almost entirely of symbols and figures—in less than half an hour. And it didn’t have a single mistake in it.
Rather proudly I handed it to Moon.
He looked at it, looked at me. “What are these smudges?”
“Why, I guess they’re from the bolts I was handling,” I said. “They’re not very bad, are they?”
The question was rhetorical as far as I was concerned. The pages were practically spotless.
“I can’t send anything to the office that looks like this,” said Moon.
“Well,” I said, “I’ll wash my hands and do it over.”
“Let it go.”
“But I don’t mind,” I protested. “If I haven’t done it right, I want the chance to do it over again.”
“Let it go,” he repeated. “I’ll have Gross do it.”
“But, listen—”
“I’ve got another job for you, anyhow.”
I spent the rest of the day making parts boxes—probably the most unpleasant job the mind could conceive. The boxes are shipped to us in the form of flat cardboard cutouts. You take one of these, crimp the ends and sides, and smear the back flap with glue. Then you bring the flap over quickly, smearing yourself to the elbows, weight it with sandbags, and stand it on the floor to set. When the back flap is firmly attached, you shake out the sandbags, apply glue to a tough board which fits beneath the front flap, and do the same thing all over again. The box is then complete except for attaching the handle. The screws for the handle, of course, usually split the wood, since you have inserted it with the grain the wrong way, and the job has to be done over.
That glue was like some a guy was supposed to have sold at Ranger, Texas, during the boom; Pop told me about it. Some old farmer had made it up from a secret recipe, and he used to drive around the drilling wells in a horse and buggy peddling it. It would stick anything together. If a man got his hand cut off, he could stick it on with this glue and it would be as good as it ever was. If a string of pipe parted, a little glue would patch it up. The way Pop told it—and I heard the yarn so many times I used to get up and walk out when he’d start on it—it was like this: One day when the farmer was passing a well the driller pulled the rig in, and one of the guy-wire stakes whizzed through the air and hit the farmer’s horse, slicing it in two. The farmer wasn’t alarmed, of course; he knew what the situation called for. He simply got out a pot of glue and stuck the horse together again. As it happened, however, he didn’t stick the two halves together as they originally were. He got two legs pointing one way, two another. But it worked out all right. After that the animal was indefatigable. When he became tired of walking on two of his legs, the farmer would turn him over and let him walk on the other two.
Well…
By noon I looked like I was wearing yellow gloves. And the stuff wouldn’t come off, as I’ve implied. I had to eat my sandwiches out of the palms of my hands, and the only way I could get a cigarette was to lift it from the package with my lips.
Gross was vastly amused, although he sympathized with me orally, and reiterated his conviction that Moon was crazy.
When I got home that night, Roberta took me into the bathroom and soaked and scrubbed me. She cried real tears. And after supper she was still so sorry for me that we went over to Balboa Park and sat until we were sure that everyone had gone to bed.
We came home. Everything was quiet. I went into the kitchen and got a drink of water, and I heard her drawing the shades and slipping a chair under the doorknob. I waited a minute before I went in. I left the kitchen light on. Roberta knows how she looks, and she likes a little light. She is the only woman I have ever known who did.
I went in. She had put the pillows from the divan upon the floor, and was lying upon them and her slack suit was by her side. She looked up at me and smiled and cupped her breasts in her hands. And she was more white, more beautiful and maddening than I had ever seen her.
I had seen her that way five thousand times, and now I saw her again. Saw her for the first time. And I felt the insane unaccountable hunger for her that I always had. Always, and always will.
And then I was in heaven and in hell at the same time. There was a time when I could drown myself in this ecstasy, and blot out what was to follow. But now the epigamic urgings travel beyond their periphery, kneading painfully against my heart and lungs and brain. A cloud surrounds me, a black mist, and I am smothered. And the horrors that are to come crowd close, observing, and I feel lewd and ashamed.
There is no beauty in it. It is ugly, despicable. For days I will be tortured, haunted, feeble, inarticulate.
And yet, even during those days. Even tomorrow morning when I first awake. Yes, even an hour from now.…
6
I didn’t get paid Friday.
About two o’clock in the afternoon, Gross asked me if I wanted to get in the check-pool. I asked him what it was.
“Check poker,” he explained. “Each check has a serial number on it, and the man with the best serial—the best hand according to poker rules—wins.”
“How much does it cost?”
“Two-bits. There’s about a hundred in our pool—in this stockroom, and Sheet-metal, and Sub-assembly, and Receiving. Better come in. You might win twenty-five dollars.”
“Can you wait until I get my check cashed?” I asked. “I don’t have any change.”
“Yes, we can do that,” he said.
He started to walk away, hesitated: “Say, you only went to work here Monday, didn’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, hell. You won’t get any check today. They hold back a week on you.”
I couldn’t believe him, reasonable as it was. Probably because I needed that money so badly. I asked Moon about it.
“No, you won’t get any today,” he admitted. “The time is always made up a week late. You’ll get paid for this week next week.”
My face must have shown my feelings.
“What’s the matter?” he said. “If you absolutely can’t make it, Personnel might advance you five or six dollars. They don’t like to, but they will sometimes.”
“I guess I can make it,” I said.
“It seems kind of hard, now, but it’s a good thing in the long run. It’s pretty nice to know that you’ve always got a week’s pay saved up.”
I hated to go home that night. More than usual, I mean. I knew no one would blame me; that is, I couldn’t pin them down to blaming me. But there would just be general hell.
When I turned the corner at Second Avenue, I saw a car I recognized sitting in front of the house. So I slipped across our neighbor’s yard and went down the driveway until I came to our bedroom. I scratched on the screen, and Roberta came to the window.
“Is that the landlady in there?”
“Yes. Did you get your check cashed?”
“I didn’t get any check. I—”
“You didn’t get it! Jimmie! Didn’t you tell them—”
“Look,” I said. “Now stop shouting and listen a minute. They hold back a week’s time on everyone. There’s nothing I could do about it. It’s a company policy. The question is—”
“But didn’t you tell them you had to have it? They can’t expect you to live on nothing!”
“They don’t give a damn whether I live or not. Now the thing to do is go in and tell the old girl what’s happened, and that we’ll pay her next week.”
“Oh, I can’t do that, Jimmie!”
“You put her off once, didn’t you?” I said. “You rented the place from her. She’s never met me. If I go in, she’ll think it’s a run-around sure enough.”
“How are we going to buy groceries?”
“Let’s not worry about that now. Go in—”
“But we don’t have anything for supper, Jimmie. I don’t know what we’ll do—”
“Are you going in there and tell her?” I said.
“No, I’m not,” said Roberta. “Tell her yourself.”
“Well call Mom back then and have her tell her.”
Roberta’s face hardened. “I’m not asking Mom to do anything! She’s already taken my head off once today. Just because I said Frankie didn’t wash the bathtub out—and I wasn’t mad at all, Jimmie—I was just as friendly as could be. I just remarked that it would make things so much easier on all of us if each one would—”
“Roberta,” I said, “are you going to do what I asked you to, or not?”
“No, sir, Jimmie. I am not.”
“That’s fine,” I said. “See you in the morning, maybe.”
“Jimmie! Jimmie! Where do you think you’re going?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Jimmie! You can’t—”
“Good-by,” I said.
“You can’t do this, Jimmie!”
“See if I can’t!” I said grimly.
And Fate accepted the invitation.
Mack, Jo, and Shannon came roaring around the corner of the house and threw themselves upon me.
“Daddy!” they shouted. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Did we get paid? Can we count the money? Can we have some—”
Above the turmoil I heard Mom’s voice, starched with amusement. “I believe Mr. Dillon’s here now. If you’ll just wait a moment…”
I went in. It wasn’t as bad as I expected. In one way, that is.
The old girl is one of those people who are nuts about writers—any kind—and she’d actually read some of my stuff. So, instead of being a deadbeat, I was an eccentric. I was working in aircraft to get material for a book; she said so herself. As for the money—well, of course, I will have to have it, Mr. Dillon, but next Friday will be perfectly all right. I know how it is with you writers. You’re always forgetting and mislaying, and—ha, ha, ha—oh, yes, indeedy! I know how you are! Ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha.…
I sat there smirking, nervous as a worm in a fish pond, hoping to God that Shannon wouldn’t take a notion to beat up on her, or that Mack wouldn’t do something in her hat, or that Jo wouldn’t say something scathing.
Finally, about six, I laughed her out the door.
It was lucky I got her out when I did. At five after six Frankie and Clarence arrived. Clarence is Portuguese, an ex-fisherman now employed as a carpenter in the shipyard where Frankie works. They had an unknown quantity of beer inside them, and they were carrying a sixty-pound tuna.
7
I had to work Saturday. When I was hired, I was told that I would work five eight-hour days a week. But Moon says we will probably be working every Saturday, and perhaps some Sundays from now on. The Government wants planes and wants them now.
That is all right with me. I’d as soon—rather—stay at the plant than go home; and anything over forty hours a week pays time-and-a-half. And I must have more money.
I’ve said that I wasn’t happy when I had money any more than I am now. That’s only relatively true. As I remember, Pop didn’t get along much better with us when he had money than when he was broke, although God knows that wasn’t our fault. But we were a little more chary about jumping down his throat, and the same thing applies in my case. Things weren’t as bad when I had money. Roberta had some way of entertaining herself besides keeping me in an uproar. I could give Mom a lift instead of saying I don’t know what to do either. When things got too bad, I could hide out in a hotel for a day or two. Or take a trip. Or—well, just get up and walk around the block and come back when I got ready.
No, I can’t even do that now. It sounds ridiculous, but I can’t. I’ve tried it, and there’s always trouble. Of course, if I will explain the exact route I am going to take, and why I want to go out, and when I will be back, and allay any suspicions arising from the fact that I want to be alone, then I can go. If I want to.
Roberta and I have been over and over this matter, and it is always the same:
“But, Jimmie. What if I just got up and walked out? What would you think?”
“Do you really want to do things like that, too, Roberta?”
“I feel like it sometimes. What would you think if I got up and walked out, and didn’t say where I was going or when I was coming back? You’d think it was mighty funny, wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose I would.”
“Don’t you see that when I want to know where you are it’s just because I love you so much? You wouldn’t like it if I didn’t care, would you?”
“No.”
“I get awfully tired sitting around the house all day, too, Jimmie. I don’t think I’m asking too much when I want to go walking with you.”
“Oh, of course you’re not, honey—”
“And the children just worship you—you know that—and they get to be with you so little. Don’t you like to be around them any more?”
“Oh, Roberta!”
“Well?”
Well?
I don’t know.
I thi
nk money would help.
Frankie gave us an extra week in advance on her board, so, what with the tuna, we had enough to scrape by on. We had an awfully good dinner Saturday night—baked tuna, and whipped potatoes, and avocado salad—the first good meal we’ve had since I don’t know when. I’d had a good bath and put on my suit of clothes. Frankie’d brought home half a pint of gin someone had donated to her, and we’d all had Tom Collinses. The children were so busy stuffing themselves that they couldn’t start anything, and—well, everything was swell. I had a week’s work behind me, and Roberta’s thigh was pressing against mine, and she was laughing at some joke Frankie was telling, and Mom was getting off some wisecracks of her own. And—it was simply swell. I felt so good that tears came into my eyes.
Then Jo said, “Will you please transmit the tubers?”
Roberta looked at her and stopped smiling. “Now none of your smartness,” she said. “If you want something, ask for it right.”
Jo stopped smiling also. “I want some potatoes, please.”
“Why don’t you ask for them, then?”
“All right, Mother,” said Jo. “Please pass the potatoes.”
I passed them. I was mad, but I wanted to get over it, and I thought I’d better pass it off as a joke. Jo can take a lot if you give her a joke to chase it with.
“We don’t allow foreign languages around here,” I said. “Absolutely no English.”
She grinned half-heartedly, watching Roberta out of the corner of her eyes.
“That’s right,” said Roberta. “Go ahead and laugh. You and your daddy think you’re awfully smart, don’t you?”
“Leave her alone, honey,” I said. “Let’s finish one meal in peace.”
“Jo didn’t mean anything, did you, Jo?” said Mom.
“I meant what I said,” said Jo.
“I know what she meant,” snapped Roberta. “She can just stay in after dinner and do the dishes. That’ll take some of the smartness out of her.”
“May I go out afterwards?” asked Jo. “I’m supposed to practice a play with—”
“No, you may not go out afterwards! You’ll go to bed. I’m getting tired of you gadding around all hours of the night.”