Junior said, “Yeah, well.”
Bud looked at Frieda and then Eva and then came back to Junior. What he said was addressed to them all. “I was under the weather there for a few hours, but that’s nobody’s business. That’s just between you, me, and the gatepost. There isn’t anybody else in even the family who ought to know about it, because they would get the wrong idea. We got to keep a stiff upper lip at this time.” Junior had acquired an expression that infuriated Bud, who said, in a quiet but savage tone, “Are you making fun of me?”
Junior swallowed. “Huh-uh.”
“Because, by God, if you are…”
“Bud,” said Frieda, “are you ready for dessert?” She could be counted on to protect her cub.
Bud said, “If we was in the spring now I might be able to slap up a temporary structure of some kind and do enough business to get into better quarters by next fall, but it’s rough now, heading towards the winter.”
Eva was nibbling her sandwich in a ladylike way, being a clean and neat girl, and she was listening respectfully to what her father said. It was just a pity she hadn’t been a boy. Bud took a sip from the inch of now cold coffee in his cup, but waved off Frieda’s attempt to get him a hot refill.
“But maybe,” said he, “somebody’s got some space in town that I can use. It was Rev of all people who pointed out there’s probably some merchandise that can be saved, like anything made of metal, wrench sets and the like. And the fact is there’s always some stuff survives a fire, or anyway ain’t ruined totally, maybe just smoked up a little or slightly charred. So maybe I can bring in something with a fire sale. That kinda thing appeals to people. They’ll buy damaged stuff at a bargain they wouldn’t have wanted when new at the best price.”
He took a speculative bite of his sandwich as Junior paused between spoonfuls of soup to say, “You won’t find nothing left by now.”
“What does that mean?”
Junior said, as if shamefacedlv, “There ain’t anything left.”
“Goddammit, I asked you what that meant!”
“I wish you wouldn’t—” Frieda began, but Bud’s fierce gesture shut her up.
“What it means,” Junior said, “is they are cleaning you out.”
“Looters?”
Junior nodded curtly. “When I got there, not till noon, some kids was fishing around in the ashes. I run them off, at least the littler ones than me, but—”
“You mean the bigger ones defied you?” asked Bud. He sensed in himself a new capacity for violence of emotion: yesterday he had been ready to die. “By God, they better not try that on me, those dirty scum!” His hand gripped the sandwich as if it were a weapon, and his teeth bit down upon it like the shutting of a steel trap.
Junior shrugged and dug into his soup. “It don’t matter now. It’s all gone.”
Bud suddenly spat the mouthful of sandwich into his hand, dumped it on the plate before him, shoved his chair back, and left the kitchen. In the bedroom he dressed in his usual workday outfit, a sleeveless coat sweater under the gray suit coat and over the white shirt and bow tie. From the back corner of the closet he took a twelve-gauge pump gun which he had never yet fired, having brought it home from the store just to keep for home protection. He rapidly ejected all the shells onto the bedspread until the magazine was empty, and then he reloaded them into the shotgun, pumped one into the chamber, and put on the safety. He wrapped the weapon in a colorful Indian blanket he and Frieda had bought on their honeymoon, in the gift shop at Badger Lake, where the proprietor had worn a war-bonnet but, with glasses and a mustache, was thought to be not a full-blooded redskin, but more likely a gentleman of the Hebrew persuasion. Frieda had also purchased a pink sateen pillow, suitably inscribed with the name of the resort.
She came in now while he was engaged in his task. She said, “Bud, you know I never stick my nose in—”
“Well then, don’t do it now,” said he. “I been pushed too far, Frieda. They’re doing me dirty. All I ever done was keep my nose to the grindstone year in year out. I never said boo to a soul. And look where it got me.”
“Well,” Frieda said, “you’re still alive.”
“Am I supposed to settle for that?” He hefted the wrapped weapon in one hand, but then decided to carry it in two, as if it were some harmless implement or piece of pipe. He went downstairs and through the kitchen to the back door. Eva was still there, placidly drinking her milk. Junior was already gone.
She said, “Bye, Dad.”
“So long,” said Bud, making it impersonal, and adding, “Don’t worry ‘bout me!”
CHAPTER 5
Dolf’s morning entry into Millville, en route to the plant, had been uneventful, and he realized that the Bullards’ threat to keep him out of their town had been so much hot air if it was meant to be taken literally. Tony had found a distributor cap and ignition wire at Shorty Rundle’s, and working until late at night, in the light of an extension lamp, he had managed to get the engine to run, but something was basically wrong with it: it made a bad noise and, worse, Dolf smelled gas while driving to work. The carburetor was probably cracked or something. It was only amazing that the explosion had not ignited the fuel the day before.
Tony had reshaped the hood-half with a ballpeen hammer until it could be rested in place and wired down, but the result really looked like hell, and some punk kids on their way to school had jeered and hooted at the car as Dolf chugged past them that morning, and in the parking lot at the plant he was humiliated to be seen getting out of a maimed automobile that looked like something driven by a hillbilly or a shine of the sort who when he had a bunion cut a hole right out of his shoe.
At lunchtime Dolf tended to avoid the men who worked under him, on the machines, and to take his lunchbox not to the large, noisy, crowded room set aside for the purpose, but to a relatively peaceful corner near the stockroom, where sitting on one crate he could put his sandwiches and thermos on another and while eating gaze with a certain satisfaction on the momentarily quiet factory-scape, crane and catwalks overhead, machinery below. Dolf had come here after dropping out of high school, and he had never worked anywhere else.
This noon he had just put his first sandwich in order—taking out the piece of lettuce that Bobby insisted on including, which was always wilted by lunchtime and reminded him of garbage; and folding the bread, if it was white, upon itself so that there were four layers instead of two, because white bread tended to compress to nothing when chomped—he had just arranged all that was necessary for the first taste when who should emerge from the adjacent door but Walt Huff, formerly a neutral personage but now of course to be identified with the enemy.
“I be darn,” said Huff, in a not unfriendly voice. “So you did show up, after all.”
Dolf lowered his sandwich. He got the reference but would not admit it. “What’s that mean?”
Huff moved his lower jaw from side to side and said almost shyly, “I don’t know, I thought them guys was making threats.”
Dolf put it right to him. “You mean your relatives?”
Huff jerked his shoulder. “By marriage. I ain’t all that close.”
“Any uh you wanna make something of it,” said Dolf, “you know where to find me.” He had previously made a decision to say nothing directly about the damage to his car to any member of the Bullard crowd. Anybody who would do such a thing would only derive enjoyment from hearing the outrage evoked by it; therefore the only effective response was not words but an act of revenge.
“I never had anything against you, Dolf,” said Huff. “You know that.”
Dolf realized for the first time that Huff had a yellow streak up his back. He pressed his advantage. “By God,” he said with quiet savagery, “I’ll take all of you on, one by one, or all at once. I don’t give a good goddam.”
“Well, that’s got nothing to do with yours truly,” said Walt. “You ‘n’ me ain’t got no quarrel. Guy who causes all the trouble is that Reverton. He’s half-crack
ed. He spends too much time with hoboes, if you ask me.”
“Yeah,” Dolf said, still holding his doubled sandwich. “Well, you just tell him I’m getting me a twelve-gauge, and if he makes one move towards that popgun of his, he won’t have no belly.”
Huff didn’t look as impressed as he should have. He said, “Well, if there’s too many guns on the scene you can’t tell who’s gonna get hurt. You and Bud could probably make it up, whatever the argument’s about, if Rev would keep out of the way. Trouble is, he’s got a lot of pride. If he thinks you’re trying to show him up—”
“Aw, the hell with that son of a bitch,” said Dolf. “Shit on him. Is he the only one in the world who’s got pride? Is he God Almighty because he carries a pistol?”
Huff ducked his head in a yellow way. “I’m just saying it would be too bad if anybody’d get really hurt, you know?”
Dolf sneered at him. “You mean you’re worried about yourself. Well, you just crawl aside with your tail between your legs, and you won’t get hurt.”
Huff grinned at him for a while. Walt was as chicken-hearted as they came. Then he said, “Go to hell, you bastard.”
Dolf put down his sandwich, stood up, and swung a roundhouse at Huff, who stepped out of its way, and just as Dolf had completed the follow-through forced on him by the momentum, Walt gave him a big one in the gut. Luckily it was too low for the solar plexus, and though it hurt him, he was not put out of action: behind the fat he still had solid stomach muscles, dating from his early days of strenuous labor.
His own next blow hit Huff’s nose: blood gushed from it like water from an open tap. Huff tried to continue, but he was bleeding too much. He put both hands to his face and walked rapidly away in the direction of the toilet.
While Dolf was watching Huff’s retreat he was struck in the chest by the sledgehammer of a heart attack, and he fell writhing to the concrete floor.
It took a while for Walt to stanch the flow of blood from his nose: he was a notorious bleeder. He snuffed a lot of water from the cup of his hand, and from time to time he threw his head back as far as it would go.
He had been wrong to start at Beeler’s belly, which had not proved that weak; he too should have gone for the face. Luckily no one else had seen the fight. Being ten years younger, he would have been humiliated the way it turned out. However, that brief encounter was only Round One so far as he was concerned. The blow he took could be considered as pretty much a sucker punch. It had been gentlemanly of him to strike at the body, whereas Beeler had obviously been out to disfigure his own opponent: he was a dirty fighter, a yellowbelly, and a bum.
Walt gingerly fingered his face while looking into the discolored mirror over the washbowl in the toilet. His swollen nose definitely changed the upper part of his face; even his eyes were affected. The guys had a softball team that sometimes practiced at the nearby Legion field after work, and for safekeeping stashed their equipment in the stockroom, which was either always manned or stoutly locked. Walt was thinking he would go get one of the baseball bats and settle the score with Beeler, who had really, if you thought about it, jumped him from behind without warning, the shit-heel. He himself had been in the right and had suffered for it. If Beeler dared to come into the toilet at the moment, Walt would have shoved his face in a pisspot.
When finally someone did appear, it was a guy with whom he had had no dealings and whose face was only vaguely familiar. This man went to the urinals and assumed the standard spread-legged stance. After a moment he looked over at Walt.
“Know a foreman named Beeler? They just took him away in an ambulance.”
“Huh?”
“There’s blood all over. They don’t know what happened.”
Walt ran out to the scene of the recent fight. The old colored janitor, wearing a suit coat on top of overalls, was mopping the floor, but nobody else was there.
“What happened here?”
“Don’t know if he was daid or not,” said the janitor.
“Who was it?” It could have been somebody else. Dolf was perfectly O.K. when last seen. The guy in the toilet could have been wrong about the identification.
“That heavy guy,” said the colored man, “you know? What they call Ralph?”
It was tempting to take him at face value, but having had experience with our dusky friends, Walt was aware they were none too reliable with the names of white men. “You don’t mean Dolf?”
“Yes indeed, that is it,” said the janitor, grinning affirmatively. “They was hauling him out when I come, and I says, ‘Who’s that?’ and they says, ‘Ralph.’ “
As Walt hastened out toward the parking lot he met a group of men who were returning.
He asked, “Was that Dolf Beeler?”
Somebody said, “That’s right. He just keeled over.”
Someone else said, “He had a hemorrhage. There was blood all over the floor.”
Walt tried to oppose panic with reason. He had been the one who bled. His only blow had sunk into five or six inches of fat: a man didn’t die from that or even lose a drop of blood. Yet who could say what might happen to a man of Beeler’s age if he took a punch? It wasn’t as if he had just collapsed in the normal course of his day. He might well have a legal case against a younger guy like Walt. Walt knew a man on whose property a door-to-door magazine salesman had tripped coming down the front-porch steps, twisted his ankle, and claimed he couldn’t ever walk right thereafter, and a shyster lawyer had won him a bundle, to pay off which the poor devil lost his home.
The Millville volunteer ambulance corps had the same personnel as the fire department, except that fewer guys were needed for most calls. If Walt had not been oblivious to the situation while in the toilet, he would certainly have considered himself as being on duty with respect to the fallen Dolf, and would have been the first to put in the emergency call and then to grab an end of the stretcher—all this when maybe it was he who had killed the victim.
His nose started to bleed again, and he returned to the toilet.
Merryvale Hospital, where the Millville ambulance boys had taken Tony’s father, was up on the county line and could not be reached from Hornbeck by public transportation except by taking two buses whose routes did not quite intersect. Though Tony was handy around engines and could drive very well, he could legally operate a motor vehicle only when accompanied by a licensed adult. His mother had never been behind the wheel of a car, and wishing to maintain Dolf’s code of independence and self-sufficiency (he hated being beholden to relatives or friends), especially now that he was on the flat of his back, Bobby realized that if she expected to get to the hospital, someone in the immediate and available family would have to drive her. Bernice had a license but could not be reached at the moment—on hearing that she had left the employment of the Majestic Theatre, Bobby strongly suspected that her daughter had been fired and was fibbing about being a manicurist, and phone calls now confirmed these suspicions—and therefore Tony was elected willy-nilly.
He came home from school within ten minutes of her call to the principal’s office and brought Jack with him. Jack was wearing a sweater that had been handed down, like so much of his clothing, from Tony. It was darned in one small place, under the arm, where the moths had got to it because he had not given it to his mother to put away for the summer, owing to an aversion to the smell of mothballs, which he said made him queasy.
“I guess you’ll want to change that,” said Bobby, pulling the wool at the elbow.
“O.K.” He went upstairs.
“I’m sure glad Dad didn’t die,” said Tony.
“People don’t always die from a heart attack,” Bobby said. She had put on her foundation and her Sunday best, including a hat, and powdered her face: all of this really did help to support a person’s spirit. “Heck, a lot of people have had one and lived to see a better day.”
“Where’s the car?” Tony asked. “Still over at the plant? I better hike over there, be quicker than the bus. And then
I’ll run back and pickya up.” He too was wearing a sweater over a shirt and tie. It was nice and neat, but as the man in the group he should be dressed like one.
“Fella from work’s bringing it over, some pal of your dad’s. While we’re waiting, why don’t you go upstairs and put on a suit, Tony? You know what I mean.”
“Sure.” He almost bumped into Jack, who was just returning in a brown coat sweater, all neatly buttoned. They really were good boys.
Tony had just gone upstairs when from her post at the back kitchen window Bobby saw the automobile come up the alley.
She gathered her coat together at the waist: it was a little too snug to button in comfort. She picked up her purse and said to Jack, “Car’s here. Tell Tony I went on out.”
Going down the back stairs she was cautious. She wore high heels only on such official occasions, weddings, funerals, and the like, which happily were not that frequent. When she reached the alley she was amazed to see that the man who had returned the car was some distance away and striding rapidly.
She called, “Hey there.”
He stopped and turned. “Miz Beeler? Key’s right there in the ignition.”
“Say,” she said, “don’t you wanna cuppa coffee and some pie?”
“No ma’am. No thanks.”
It was the least she could do to walk up to him and say, “It was real nice of you to run it over. I know Dolf will appreciate it.” She smiled at him. He looked some years younger than her husband. “Would you be Ozzie Walsh?”
“No ma’am.” He looked shyly away. His nose looked red, as though he had a cold.
“I was wondering who to tell Dolf it was,” said Bobby. “We’re going over now, so we’ll be there’s soon’s they let us see him.”
“Izzat the hospital?”
“Merryvale,” said Bobby.
“He’s holding on, then?” This question was anxious.
“Yes he is. But you never know what the future holds,” she said superstitiously. “With the heart you just have to wait. They’ll keep him for a while. I just thank the Lord this first one wasn’t fatal…. Well, he will sure appreciate you bringing the car over. If you don’t mind, I’d like to tell…”