Place in the City (21 page)

Then they sat in silence, looking at each other, and Danny was thinking how he had promised Alice to be right back. Well, maybe he would be right back. And then Danny sat and wondered how long it would take Timy to say what he had meant to say all the time, and what he would say to Timy after Timy told him.

“Maybe they won't get a thing on you,” Timy said. “Maybe I'll be able to fix it. Anyway, Danny, it ain't a hell of a lot for you to worry about.”

“You want me to take it?”

“It ain't that, Danny,” Timy protested. “I don't want you to take no rap for me. There ain't much chance that they'd convict you, an' if they do it won't be more than a year. We could spring you before then. But where do you stand if I go under? That's what I wanna know, Danny? Where do you stand them?”

“And if I go to jail—?”

“Hell, no, Danny. I tell you it ain't that bad.”

Danny looked at him. Danny's face was open and hurt, and Timy saw that it was just a kid's face, hurt the same way a kid is hurt when he sees injustice—injustice without reason. No poker player, Timy was thinking. Danny began to shake his head; he was scared, too, Timy realized.

“Maybe if you don't owe me nothing,” Timy said, “then it ain't reasonable for me to ask. But maybe you owe me a thing or two. Maybe you wouldn't be living in a nice apartment uptown, if it wasn't for me. Maybe you'd be layin' in a stinkin' gutter—”

“Maybe I would,” Danny whispered.

Timy's anxious worried face broke into a smile, and he spread his pudgy hands wide on the table. “There you are then,” he said. “Now look, Danny, it ain't the way you think, an' it ain't as if you're being sent up for twenty years or so. Maybe if we don't beat this thing, you'll go in for a year, an' I'm telling you I'll spring you before the year is up.”

“Yeah.”

“Now I'm goin' to get in touch with Haggerty, an'—”

Danny stared at him, mouth open; at the side of his neck, the skin was pulsing—hard; and the hand he held out to Timy was trembling.

“I can't do it, Timy.”

“What's the matter—you yellow?”

“I tell you I can't do it, Timy. I'll do anything else for you, I swear. But I'm not in this deal, Timy, and I can't take a rap for you now. Geesus Christ, Timy, don't you think I know what I owe you? Don't you think I know, Timy? But I tell you I can't take this rap. I can't!”

As Timy looked at him, the round pink face tightened; and Timy's popping blue eyes became like bits of steel, icy cold. Timy wasn't afraid any more, only good and sore, and Danny knew that he was good and sore. Danny knew that it was all up between him and Timy. Things happened like that. Timy wouldn't stop; whatever he wanted to do, whatever happened, Timy wouldn't stop. Timy would keep on going, up and up, only between him and Timy all things were finished. That's the way things happen.

“You little yellow bastard,” Timy said. “You ungrateful gutter bitch. Awright—”

“Wait a minute,” Danny pleaded. “Don't jump all over me like that, Timy. Wait a minute, and let me tell you. Don't you see, Timy, I'm on the spot. My wife's going to have a kid. I swear to God that's the truth, Timy. Geesus, I was even going to tell you about it when I came in here. I was saying to myself, There's nobody wants to hear about this like Timy does. I was thinking how it'd make you feel the same way I feel.”

“Yeah?”

“Don't you see, Timy? How can I go back and tell my wife that they're going to put me away for two or three years? And she don't know. She thinks I'm the best God damn lawyer in the city, and honest.”

“Yeah?”

“Awright, Timy. Maybe I don't rate, so I'm sorry. But I'm not taking it.”

Timy stared at him, lips parted just a little, eyes even and unmoving. Timy was a good poker player; there weren't many better poker players than Timy.

“Timy!”

Timy smiled then, a broad full smile, the kind of a smile he used when he was telling a man how to vote. When you saw that knowing smile, you just knew that there were no two ways about it, that behind the smile the man was right.

“Give me a break,” Danny begged.

“Sure I'll give you a break,” Timy nodded. “I'll spring you—like I said. But you're taking it. You ought to know—ain't you a God damn good lawyer? Your name's on everything. I ain't in it. So you're taking it, Danny, like you said you would.”

S
HE FED
the children then, gave them their supper. You see, with her everything that concerned the children was ritual. The children alone were above the rest of the world.

When Mary White saw the world, she saw the cul-desac of Apple Place. From the opening upon the avenue to the blank ending, it existed, the world existed, and beyond the open end she rarely dared to venture. Here, they knew her shame; here she could brazen out her lost womanhood; here she knew that the world was lost, sunk into the misery of itself. But outside—outside too many people laughed and lived as people should. Perhaps in Apple Place too, but she didn't know.

And in the place the gleam of the good, of the wonder of life, was the children. Whatever she did, the children made it good. She could sink to all the depths of human depravity, and then come back to the children and feel that she was coming into a place of intrinsic holiness.

She gave them their supper this night; and this night, for the first time, the feeling was gone—because she felt that Peter knew. Not all of it; he couldn't understand all of it yet: but he knew something, and as time went on he would know more and more, always more.

“I'm his mother,” she thought.

Peter stared at his plate somberly, but Sasha bubbled. Sasha always bubbled. She couldn't stay still for more than a few minutes, and she couldn't keep a smile from her face for much longer than that.

“Eat,” Mary said. She bent over, kissing him.

“I ain't hungry,” Peter muttered.

Sasha said: “Pede's goin' tu marry me, so whadu yu think of that?”

“I think it's wonderful,” Mary told her.

“I'm sick uv girls,” Peter said.

“Pede!”

“Yeah.”

Sasha forgot her food. She forgot everything, staring at Peter; she ran around the table and stood by him, staring at him and shaking her head. “Pede,” she whispered.

Then Mary White went out. She went into her room, stood in front of the mirror, and looked at herself. She put her hands up, touched all parts of her face, and then traveled her hands over the rest of her body, searchingly; she went to her bed and sat down.

“Time to go back,” she said.

She attempted to smile, and succeeded only in contorting her face, and then with an effort she wiped her face clean of all emotion. Then she put up her hands and felt over the small sores that were breaking out. Her head was beginning to ache. Toward the end of the day, her head always ached, and at night she would lie awake for hours, feeling that narrow bands of iron were drawing in the center of her head, forcing the top of it out and out.

But no use to think. Putting on her coat, she went back to the kitchen. Peter was eating, and opposite him Sasha was smiling contentedly. Then she slipped out, without speaking to them.

Back in Shutzey's place, she sat down in the parlor. She was all alone there; she thought it would be nice to sit for a while, just sit and not do anything. She hadn't meant to listen, but she couldn't help it. In the next room, Shutzey and Snookie Eagen were making their plans for the night. She listened until she heard that the truck would be Dutch Murry's, whom she knew because now and again he came to Shutzey's house. And then it was terribly simple for her to go out and phone Dutch Murry.

She almost ran to Meyer's store at the corner; she felt curiously light, full of life and eagerness. Meyer's wife was behind the counter. When Mary asked for two nickels for a dime, Bessie turned' her eyes away. She felt evil all over Mary White, from her white shoes to her furpiece and painted lips. Something inside of Bessie went sick when she looked at these women; she would think of her daughters, and sometimes in spite of herself put her daughters in their place. But thank God that whatever her daughters did, they were good women.

“Thank you,” Mary said. She took the change, went into the booth and asked for her number. Then she explained how Shutzey planned to hijack thirty-thousand dollars' worth of liquor.

“Who are you?”

“Never mind that. I'm tipping you off.”

“How do I know it's straight?”

“You don't have to know. Just make sure—” She hung up and stepped out of the booth. Then she turned around and saw Jessica, who was just coming down the stairs, too late to hear what Mary was saying. She looked at Jessica, stared at her, and felt her throat lump up at the fresh slim beauty. Mary almost ran from the store.

W
HETHER
she felt it move or not, as she had imagined, it was inside of her, something growing and living inside of her; and she remembered how day by day it had bred in her such splendid calm. As if it drew all fear and worry from her. Even when she was sick, she did not worry, and she had been sick quite often.

When Danny left, she set herself to sew, an even contemplative movement of the needle that would occupy the few hours until Danny came back. It was true that she was a little afraid whenever Danny was gone, but you had to expect that. She sewed a tiny quilt, thinking to herself that all mothers, for a long time before their children are born, sew on just such tiny things; and that in such anticipation there was really a great deal of pleasure.

You see, Alice had dropped out of the world. Or perhaps the world had removed itself from her; anyway, she was alone, and completely content in her isolation. She had Danny and she had the something inside of her, and she didn't need any more than that. She continued to sew until it became too dark, and then she rose and turned on the lamp.

She embroidered a design on the quilt, with Danny's initials and her own woven into it. She would have liked the child's initials, but it wasn't safe to do that, because how did you know whether it would be a boy or a girl? And they weren't too certain what they would call it. Names was a game to fill evenings; and she had never known there were that many names in the world.

She hummed and nodded and began to grow sleepy, lulled by the soft patter of the rain against the windows. It was good to be safe in your own home, warm. Danny was out in the rain; he would come in with his cheeks gleaming. She put the sewing away, went into the kitchen to warm water for tea. Danny would want tea when he came in.

She watched the water come to a boil. Simple things had taken on meaning and interest. She couldn't be bored, because even a small thing like watching water boil was enough to hold her and interest her. Then she set out two cups, two saucers, two spoons, two napkins, and then began to laugh, delighted with the sequence of two by two. Two by two and then three by three, and then on and on. Silly, she thought, but she sat smiling and happy, her eyes roaming around the kitchen, lighting upon all the precious things that were still new and shiny. Then she poured the water into the tea-pot, watched the leaves soak.

She heard Danny and went to the door. He was fumbling with his key, when she threw the door open, smiling, and pulled him inside. She put her arms around him, kissed his wet face, and then stood back from him with a childish grin.

“See what you've done,” she said. “I'm wet all over.”

He took off his hat and nodded slowly.

“Well, you could be sorry. I'm wet all over, terribly wet. I think you could be sorry, Danny. Danny—I love you. I have tea, and look at this quilt. I'm putting your initial in one corner and mine in the other.”

“It's nice,” he said.

“It's beautiful. Give me your coat—and tell me what your great wonderful Timy Dolan wanted.”

“Yes—I'll do it.” He took off his coat and put it into the closet. Then he put his hat away. He felt weak and a little sick, and he wanted terribly to sit somewhere. He went to a chair, fell into it, and then looked at his wife. He looked at her as if he had never seen her before, looked at her face and her arms, at the bulge in her middle where the child would be.

“Have tea?” she inquired. She looked at him queerly, curiously, and shook her head. “Danny—what's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

Then she pointed to the carpet. “Look, look, Danny, it's my beautiful new carpet, and just look what you've done to it with your wet feet.” She simulated anger, and then knelt on the carpet beside him, laughing and crooning over him.

“Alice—”

She climbed to her feet. How slow all her motions were! Just as if time no longer meant anything to her, as if she had all the time in the world in front of her now.

“Something bad, Danny? Don't tell me that your splendid Timy hasn't told you he'll make you president of the United States by and by? Danny—could you imagine how that would be? Am I so very silly? I never used to be silly; I used to be stiff and impressive like this.” She straightened up, tilting her nose high into the air.

“Suppose I went away,” he said with determination. “Just suppose I went away, darling?”

“I'd go with you.”

He stared at her, and she, seeing very real fear on his face, was suddenly frightened. He looked as if something had beaten him—hard.

“Danny—what happened?”

“It'll be all right,” he said.

“Danny, tell me what happened!”

He managed a smile, but on his frightened face it was almost grotesque. And then the smile remained there, as if it had been slapped on by a careless painter; and Alice, watching it, felt her stomach swelling with horror and fear. She was going to be sick—or else she would faint. Then she crept into a chair.