THE SHAPE OF THINGS
(1944)
A wispish-sized, white pompadoured woman swayed down the dining-car aisle and inched into a seat next to a window. She finished penciling her order and squinted near-sightedly across the table at a ruddy-cheeked Marine and a heart-faced girl. In one sweep she noted a gold band on the girl’s finger, a string of red cloth twisted in her hair and decided she was cheap; mentally labeled her war bride. She smiled faintly, inviting conversation.
The girl beamed back, “You was lucky you come so early on account of it’s so crowded. We didn’t get no lunch ’cause there was Russian soldiers eatin’ … or somethin’. Gosh you should’ve seen them, looked just like Boris Karloff, honest!”
It was a voice like a chirping teakettle and caused the woman to clear her throat. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said. “Before this trip I never dreamt there were so many in the world, soldiers, I mean. You just never realize until you get on a train. I keep asking myself, where do they all come from?”
“Draft boards,” the girl said, and then giggled foolishly.
Her husband blushed apologetically. “You goin’ all the way, ma’am?”
“Presumably, but this train’s as slow as … as …”
“Molasses!” the girl exclaimed and followed breathlessly with, “Gee, I’m so excited, you can’t imagine. All day I’ve been just glued to the scenery. Where I come from in Arkansas it’s all kinda flat, so I get an extra thrill right from my toes when I see these mountains.” And turning to her husband, “Honey, d’ya suppose we’re in Carolina?”
He looked out the window where the dusk was thickening on the pane. Gathering swiftly the blue light and the hill humps blending and echoing one another. He blinked back into the diner’s brightness. “Must be Virginia,” he guessed and shrugged his shoulders.
From the direction of the coaches a soldier suddenly lurched awkwardly toward them and collapsed in the table’s empty seat like a rag doll. He was small and his uniform spilled over him in crumpled folds. His face, lean and sharp featured, contrasted palely with the Marine’s and his black, crew-cropped hair shone under the light like a cap of sealskin. With tired eyes foggily studying the three as though there were a screen flung between them, he picked nervously at two chevrons sewn on his sleeve.
The woman shifted uncomfortably and pressed nearer the window. She thoughtfully tagged him drunk, and seeing the girl wrinkle up her nose knew she shared the verdict.
While the white-aproned negro unloaded his tray the Corporal said, “What I want is coffee, a big pot of it and a double jigger of cream.”
The girl dipped her fork into the creamed chicken. “Dontcha think what these folks charge for their stuff is awful, dear?”
And then it began. The Corporal’s head started to bob in short uncontrollable jerks. A lolling pause with his head bent grotesquely forward; a muscle convulsion snapping his neck sideways. His mouth stretched nastily and the neck veins tautened.
“Oh my God,” the girl cried and the woman dropped her butter knife and automatically shaded a sensitive hand over her eyes. The Marine stared vacantly for a moment, then quickly recovering he pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“Here, fella,” he said, “you better have one.”
“Please, thanks … very kind,” the soldier muttered and then beat a knuckle-white fist against the table. Silverware trembled, water wasted over the glass tops. A stillness paused in the air and a distant burst of laughter sliced evenly through the car.
Then the girl, aware of attention, smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear. The woman looked up and bit her lip when she saw the Corporal trying to light his cigarette.
“Here, let me,” she volunteered.
Her hand shook so badly that the first match went out. When the second attempt connected she managed a trite smile. After a while he quieted. “I’m so ashamed … please forgive me.”
“Oh, we understand,” the woman said. “We understand perfectly.”
“Did it hurt?” the girl asked.
“No, no, it doesn’t hurt.”
“I was scared ’cause I thought it hurt. It sure looks that way. ’Spose it’s sorta like hiccups?” She gave a sudden start as though someone had kicked her.
The Corporal traced his finger along the table rim and presently he said, “I was all right till I got on the train. They said I’d be fine. Said, ‘You’re o.k., soldier.’ But it’s the excitement, the knowing you’re in the States and free and the goddamned waiting’s over.” He brushed at his eye.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The waiter set the coffee down and the woman tried to help him. With a little angry push he shoved her hand away. “Now please don’t. I know how!” Embarrassingly confused she turned to the window and met her face mirrored there. The face was calm and it surprised her because she felt a dizzy unreality as if she were swinging between two dream points. Channeling her thoughts elsewhere she followed the solemn trip of the Marine’s fork from plate to mouth. The girl was eating now very voraciously but her own food was growing cold.
Then it began again, not violently as before. In the rawish glare of an oncoming train’s searchlight distorted reflection blurred and the woman sighed.
He was swearing softly and it sounded more as though he were praying. Then he frantically clutched the sides of his head in a strong hand vise.
“Listen, fella, you betta get a doctor,” the Marine suggested.
The woman reached out and rested her hand on his upraised arm. “Is there anything I can do?” she said.
“What they used to do to stop it was look in my eyes … as long as I’m looking in somebody’s eyes it’ll quit.”
She leaned her face close to his. “There,” he said, quieting instantly, “there, now. You’re a sweetheart.”
“Where was it?” she said.
He frowned and said, “There was lots of places … it’s my nerves. They’re all torn up.”
“And where are you going now?”
“Virginia.”
“And that’s home, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s where home is.”
The woman felt an ache in her fingers and loosened her suddenly intense grip on his arm. “That’s where home is and you must remember that the other is unimportant.”
“You know something,” he whispered. “I love you. I love you because you’re very silly and very innocent and ’cause you’ll never know anything but what you see in pictures. I love you ’cause we’re in Virginia and I’m almost home.” Abruptly the woman looked away. An offended tenseness embroidered on the silence.
“So you think that’s all?” he said. He leaned on the table and pawed his face sleepily. “There’s that but then there’s dignity. When it happens with people I’ve always known what then? D’ya think I want to sit down at a table with them or someone like you and make ’em sick? D’ya think I want to scare a kid like this one over here and put ideas in her head about her own guy! I’ve been waiting for months, and they tell me I’m well but the first time …” He stopped and his eyebrows concentrated.
The woman slipped two bills on top of her check and pushed her chair back. “Would you let me through now, please?” she said.
The Corporal heaved up and stood there looking down at the woman’s untouched plate. “Go on an’ eat, damn you,” he said. “You’ve got to eat!” And then, without looking back he disappeared in the direction of the coaches.
The woman paid for the coffee.
JUG OF SILVER
(1945)
After school I used to work in the Valhalla drugstore. It was owned by my uncle, Mr. Ed Marshall. I call him Mr. Marshall because everybody, including his wife, called him Mr. Marshall. Nevertheless he was a nice man.
This drugstore was maybe old-fashioned, but it was large and dark and cool: during summer months there was no pleasanter place in town. At the left, as you entered, was a tobacco-magazine counter behind which, as a rule, sat Mr. Marshall: a squat, squ
are-faced, pink-fleshed man with looping, manly, white mustaches. Beyond this counter stood the beautiful soda fountain. It was very antique and made of fine, yellowed marble, smooth to the touch but without a trace of cheap glaze. Mr. Marshall bought it at an auction in New Orleans in 1910 and was plainly proud of it. When you sat on the high, delicate stools and looked across the fountain you could see yourself reflected softly, as though by candlelight, in a row of ancient mahogany-framed mirrors. All general merchandise was displayed in glass-doored, curio-like cabinets that were locked with brass keys. There was always in the air the smell of syrup and nutmeg and other delicacies.
The Valhalla was the gathering place of Wachata County till a certain Rufus McPherson came to town and opened a second drugstore directly across the courthouse square. This old Rufus McPherson was a villain; that is, he took away my uncle’s trade. He installed fancy equipment such as electric fans and colored lights; he provided curb service and made grilled-cheese sandwiches to order. Naturally, though some remained devoted to Mr. Marshall, most folks couldn’t resist Rufus McPherson.
For a while, Mr. Marshall chose to ignore him: if you were to mention McPherson’s name, he would sort of snort, finger his mustaches and look the other way. But you could tell he was mad. And getting madder. Then one day toward the middle of October I strolled into the Valhalla to find him sitting at the fountain playing dominoes and drinking wine with Hamurabi.
Hamurabi was an Egyptian and some kind of dentist, though he didn’t do much business, as the people hereabouts have unusually strong teeth, due to an element in the water. He spent a great deal of his time loafing around the Valhalla and was my uncle’s chief buddy. He was a handsome figure of a man, this Hamurabi, being dark-skinned and nearly seven feet tall; the matrons of the town kept their daughters under lock and key and gave him the eye themselves. He had no foreign accent whatsoever, and it was always my opinion that he wasn’t any more Egyptian than the man in the moon.
Anyway, there they were swigging red Italian wine from a gallon jug. It was a troubling sight, for Mr. Marshall was a renowned teetotaler. So naturally, I thought: Oh, golly, Rufus McPherson has finally got his goat. That was not the case, however.
“Here, son,” said Mr. Marshall, “come have a glass of wine.”
“Sure,” said Hamurabi, “help us finish it up. It’s store-bought, so we can’t waste it.”
Much later, when the jug was dry, Mr. Marshall picked it up and said, “Now we shall see!” And with that disappeared out into the afternoon.
“Where’s he off to?” I asked.
“Ah,” was all Hamurabi would say. He liked to devil me.
A half-hour passed before my uncle returned. He was stooped and grunting under the load he carried. He set the jug atop the fountain and stepped back, smiling and rubbing his hands together. “Well, what do you think?”
“Ah,” purred Hamurabi.
“Gee …” I said.
It was the same wine jug, God knows, but there was a wonderful difference; for now it was crammed to the brim with nickels and dimes that shone dully through the thick glass.
“Pretty, eh?” said my uncle. “Had it done over at the First National. Couldn’t get in anything bigger-sized than a nickel. Still, there’s lotsa money in there, let me tell you.”
“But what’s the point, Mr. Marshall?” I said. “I mean, what’s the idea?”
Mr. Marshall’s smile deepened to a grin. “This here’s a jug of silver, you might say …”
“The pot at the end of the rainbow,” interrupted Hamurabi.
“… and the idea, as you call it, is for folks to guess how much money is in there. For instance, say you buy a quarter’s worth of stuff—well, then you get to take a chance. The more you buy, the more chances you get. And I’ll keep all guesses in a ledger till Christmas Eve, at which time whoever comes closest to the right amount will get the whole shebang.”
Hamurabi nodded solemnly. “He’s playing Santa Claus—a mighty crafty Santa Claus,” he said. “I’m going home and write a book: The Skillful Murder of Rufus McPherson.” To tell the truth, he sometimes did write stories and send them out to the magazines. They always came back.
It was surprising, really like a miracle, how Wachata County took to the jug. Why, the Valhalla hadn’t done so much business since Station Master Tully, poor soul, went stark raving mad and claimed to have discovered oil back of the depot, causing the town to be overrun with wildcat prospectors. Even the poolhall bums who never spent a cent on anything not connected with whiskey or women took to investing their spare cash in milk shakes. A few elderly ladies publicly disapproved of Mr. Marshall’s enterprise as a kind of gambling, but they didn’t start any trouble and some even found occasion to visit us and hazard a guess. The schoolkids were crazy about the whole thing, and I was very popular because they figured I knew the answer.
“I’ll tell you why all this is,” said Hamurabi, lighting one of the Egyptian cigarettes he bought by mail from a concern in New York City. “It’s not for the reason you may imagine; not, in other words, avidity. No. It’s the mystery that’s enchanting. Now you look at those nickels and dimes and what do you think: ah, so much! No, no. You think: ah, how much? And that’s a profound question, indeed. It can mean different things to different people. Understand?”
And oh, was Rufus McPherson wild! When you’re in trade, you count on Christmas to make up a large share of your yearly profit, and he was hard pressed to find a customer. So he tried to imitate the jug; but being such a stingy man he filled his with pennies. He also wrote a letter to the editor of the Banner, our weekly paper, in which he said that Mr. Marshall ought to be “tarred and feathered and strung up for turning innocent little children into confirmed gamblers and sending them down the path to Hell!” You can imagine what kind of laughingstock he was. Nobody had anything for McPherson but scorn. And so by the middle of November he just stood on the sidewalk outside his store and gazed bitterly at the festivities across the square.
At about this time Appleseed and sister made their first appearance.
He was a stranger in town. At least no one could recall ever having seen him before. He said he lived on a farm a mile past Indian Branches; told us his mother weighed only seventy-four pounds and that he had an older brother who would play the fiddle at anybody’s wedding for fifty cents. He claimed that Appleseed was the only name he had and that he was twelve years old. But his sister, Middy, said he was eight. His hair was straight and dark yellow. He had a tight, weather-tanned little face with anxious green eyes that had a very wise and knowing look. He was small and puny and high-strung; and he wore always the same outfit: a red sweater, blue denim britches and a pair of man-sized boots that went clop-clop with every step.
It was raining that first time he came into the Valhalla; his hair was plastered round his head like a cap and his boots were caked with red mud from the country roads. Middy trailed behind as he swaggered like a cowboy up to the fountain, where I was wiping some glasses.
“I hear you folks got a bottle fulla money you fixin’ to give ’way,” he said, looking me square in the eye. “Seein’ as you-all are givin’ it away, we’d be obliged iffen you’d give it to us. Name’s Appleseed, and this here’s my sister, Middy.”
Middy was a sad, sad-looking kid. She was a good bit taller and older-looking than her brother: a regular bean pole. She had tow-colored hair that was chopped short, and a pale pitiful little face. She wore a faded cotton dress that came way up above her bony knees. There was something wrong with her teeth, and she tried to conceal this by keeping her lips primly pursed like an old lady.
“Sorry,” I said, “but you’ll have to talk with Mr. Marshall.”
So sure enough he did. I could hear my uncle explaining what he would have to do to win the jug. Appleseed listened attentively, nodding now and then. Presently he came back and stood in front of the jug and, touching it lightly with his hand, said, “Ain’t it a pretty thing, Middy?”
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bsp; Middy said, “Is they gonna give it to us?”
“Naw. What you gotta do, you gotta guess how much money’s inside there. And you gotta buy two bits’ worth so’s even to get a chance.”
“Huh, we ain’t got no two bits. Where you ’spec we gonna get us two bits?”
Appleseed frowned and rubbed his chin. “That’ll be the easy part, just leave it to me. The only worrisome thing is: I can’t just take a chance and guess … I gotta know.”
Well, a few days later they showed up again. Appleseed perched on a stool at the fountain and boldly asked for two glasses of water, one for him and one for Middy. It was on this occasion that he gave out the information about his family: “… then there’s Papa Daddy, that’s my mama’s papa, who’s a Cajun, an’ on accounta that he don’t speak English good. My brother, the one what plays the fiddle, he’s been in jail three times.… It’s on accounta him we had to pick up and leave Louisiana. He cut a fella bad in a razor fight over a woman ten years older’n him. She had yellow hair.”
Middy, lingering in the background, said nervously, “You oughtn’t to be tellin’ our personal private fam’ly business thataway, Appleseed.”
“Hush now, Middy,” he said, and she hushed. “She’s a good little gal,” he added, turning to pat her head, “but you can’t let her get away with much. You go look at the picture books, honey, and stop frettin’ with your teeth. Appleseed here’s got some figurin’ to do.”
This figuring meant staring hard at the jug, as if his eyes were trying to eat it up. With his chin cupped in his hand, he studied it for a long period, not batting his eyelids once. “A lady in Louisiana told me I could see things other folks couldn’t see ’cause I was born with a caul on my head.”