Ice-Cream Headache (22 page)

In his case it would be even worse, since Margaret Simpson (Gee, what a lovely, beautiful name, that was.) was not his girlfriend and never had been; and had never had any dates with him, (He had never had any dates at all, in fact, yet; although Margaret was known to have dated freshmen in high school and even a few sophomores this past year; but he was going to ask her for a date as soon as he gave her the box tomorrow.) and so nobody knew he had the hots for her and had fallen in love with her. That would make terrific news at the Newsstand, after tomorrow, and it wouldn’t do him any good to deny it, although he would. It wouldn’t even matter if the whole thing wasn’t even true, for that matter; once the guys got the idea in their heads from someplace.

For a moment, as the seconds ticked agonizingly on toward five o’clock and the hanging moment of ultimate decision, John seriously considered the phantom luxury of just abandoning the whole project, of just turning around and going off and forgetting the whole thing and just buying her a cheap little box someplace else. Nobody would even notice a small cheap box. Just the idea of it was an enormous relief. But he knew he could never do it. Not after having exacted of himself a solemn faithful promise that he would go through with it. He would never be able to trust his promises again. That was the very reason he had done it, had made himself promise. So he couldn’t back out.

Miserable, and with an acute feeling of desolation, he took hold of himself mentally and as it were placed both hands in the center of his own thin back, and shoved himself slowly over to the counter as if he were shoving a friend on roller-skates, and mumbled.

“What is it, boy? What is it? Speak up.”

Louder, John said: “I said I want that eight-ninetyfive one there. How much is it?” His hand in his pocket nervously fingering his money, he knew immediately his mistake and cursed himself for it. Old squinch-eye was staring down at him from across the counter with the beginning of his evil grin all the guys knew so well amongst themselves and talked about, did he think he was fooling them?

“How much is it!” the assistant manager said loudly, laughing. “You just told me yourself. It’s eight-ninetyfive. What do you mean how much is it?”

“I’ll take it,” John said nervously, fighting to keep his eyes looking straight at the squinchy ones. “Wrap it up.” Down the counter in the corner of his eye he could see the two guys from the Newsstand nudging at each other.

“Yes,
Sir,
Mr Slade!” the Woolworth man grinned, his squinch-eyes squinching up even further. “Right
away,
Sir!” He grinned down the counter at the other two guys. “Will there be anything else, Sir?”

John tried to make it sound offhand but he could tell his voice was shaky: “Nope. I guess that’ll be all.”

“Got yourself a new girlfriend, hunh?” the assistant manager said loudly, as he began to wrap the box. “Man, you really must be stuck on her. Eight-ninetyfive for a box of candy.” He lowered his voice in a make-believe confidence. “Want to tell me who she is?” he said slyly. The other two guys from the Newsstand were sidling down the counter, grinning in that way John knew so well, since he himself had done it so many times too with other guys, when they knew they had some guy in a corner and by the short hair. The Woolworth man winked at them, grinning.

Inspired by embarrassment, John came up with an idea: “It’s not for a girl,” he lied, “it’s for my mother.” He managed to look at old squinch-eye steadily, but his voice gave him away and he knew it. Just the same, he knew instinctively not even the guys would dare make fun about anything as sacred as a fellow’s mother, so it was a good lie.

The Woolworth man appeared to be a little nonplussed. There was a short pause as everybody stopped the game and thought solemnly of their own sacred mothers. It made John think suddenly of how he had seen Catholics look when they came out of a church and stopped and crossed themselves. Then old squinch-eye, having paused respectfully, winked at the two guys, including them, and grinned: “Aw, come on, Johnny. You can tell us. Who is she. Really.”

“Yeah, come on and tell us,” one of the guys, Ted Wright it was, said.

“Yeah. We’ll find out anyway, Slade.” the other one, Hank Lewis, grinned.

“I told you,” John said, as stoutly as he could muster. “I aint got a girl. This is for my mom.” The box was wrapped now, but old squinch-eye was reluctant to let go of it and spoil the fun. John took the once-folded bills, nine dollars in all, that he had been saving back out of his route, (He had even made a special trip around, when he wasn’t carrying, to collect up some of the back bills, so his percentage would be higher, so he would have enough.) out of his pocket and extended them, and at the same time held out his other hand.

The Woolworth man passed over the package with his right hand and took the money with his left, but then he would not quite let go. His hand clung to the box of candy teasingly.

“Is she in your room?” he asked. “Is she in 8A? Come on, you can tell
us.”

“Maybe she’s in 8B,” one of the guys grinned. “Maybe she’s from down in Sack-town.”

“Yeah. Maybe it’s one of the Linder girls,” the other one grinned. “Is it one of the Linder girls, Johnny?”

“I told you,” John said. “Can I have my change, please?”

Finally, reluctantly, old squinch-eye let go of the box. “Your change? A whole nickel? I’m not sure I’ve got that much on hand,” he grinned, his eyes squinching; but he turned around to the register, and then finally the ordeal was over. How could any guy get so mean, in only just thirty years or so?

Trying hard not to walk too fast, aware of his chest breathing fast and his arms and legs both trembling and hoping none of it showed, John went to the door with as much dignity as he could muster up.

“We’ll find out anyway, Slade,” one of the guys called after him teasingly. “We’ll find out anyway, tomorrow.”

And they would, too. It was a threatening promise of what he could expect to be coming his way. Outside he lay the wrapped package carefully in the basket of his bike, kicked up the kickstand and pushed off throwing his leg over. Well, to hell with them. Let them find out. Let them find out he had the hots for and was in love with (Oh, sweet lovely name.) Margaret Simpson. He didn’t care. He was proud of it. So let them find out. They would anyway.

At home he went in and straight upstairs to his own room and put the wrapped box carefully away in a drawer of his dresser, and he did not tell anybody, neither his parents nor his kid sister, about it. But that night, after supper and the radio and homework and some reading, when he went to bed, he lay with his arms behind his head and thought about it. Finally he got up and took it out and unwrapped it (He could put it in a paper sack tomorrow to take to school to keep it clean—and hidden.) and looked at it. He was both excited and scared about tomorrow. He wished there
was
somebody he could talk to about it. He hoped it would be all right, and he
thought
it would. Certainly it would be the best, the most expensive valentine any girl in the class would get. That was for sure. But you couldn’t be sure with Margaret. She was a pretty sophisticated girl, Margaret. Love and desire for her welled up in him at the silent pronunciation of her name, and he put the box carefully away and climbed back into bed. Actually, he had never spoken to Margaret about his feeling for her. Maybe he should have. His
love
for her, he corrected himself, (And of course he
couldn’t
speak to her about his having the hots for her, The very idea of that made his face feel flushed and made him feel guilty. He shouldn’t even feel that about her. But then, the two things were entirely different, weren’t they. They didn’t really have anything to do with each other at all, did they.) his
love,
he said again. Actually, she was easily the most popular girl in the class, and had been elected most popular girl last year in seventh grade, and undoubtedly would be again this year in eighth grade, as well as being the best looking. She wore lots of skirts and sweaters, with the sleeves pushed up, and she had the best developed chest in 8A. Actually, she came from a very poor family, and lived in a very poor tacky little house on the far side of town. Her mother was dead and she kept house for her father and those of her five big brothers who still lived at home, which was two. Actually, she was really much better off than that sounded though, because old Mrs Carter, who was rich and has a sort of estate like right next door to Margaret’s, had taken her under her wing as a motherless girl and paid for all her clothes and things and was going to send her to college. Also, all her five brothers were musical, as she was herself, and played instruments and had played in bands around town, and so Margaret herself had been singing with a band that one of her brothers ran, at places like the Elks Club and the Country Club, ever since she had been in sixth grade. That, right there, probably accounted for a lot of her sophistication. Everybody said she was really very talented as a singer and might have a chance to go a long way someday. Also she made excellent grades; always.

Well, he bet she had never had as expensive, or as big, a valentine as this before, even from a sophomore; and thinking about her in the warmth of the bed under the warm covers, John rolled over and curled himself up and went to sleep. But he was still worried.

Once, two years ago it was, almost, during the summer after sixth grade, he had tried to make love to another little girl. This little girl was two years younger than him, the same age as his kid sister, and she lived across the street and they all used to play together a lot, with all the other kids from the block, in the summer. But one night, after dark, just the three of them, his sister, this girl, and himself, were sitting on this girl’s porch across the street. The porch light was out so it was dark and he and the little girl were in the swing, his sister in a chair not far from them. All afternoon and all evening, when they’d been playing, this little girl had been poking him and pinching him and grabbing him and tickling him and accidentally falling against him, and then giggling. He had assumed from this that she liked him and was giving him a sort of invitation, so in the swing in the dark, strangely excited, he had put his arm around her and whispered to her to let him kiss her. Actually, he didn’t even completely get his arm around her because she had moved away from him immediately in the swing before he could; and where before she had been warm and practically rubbing herself against him she now was suddenly cold and untouchable. Still excited, in a wholly new way he had never felt before, he had slid over after her in the swing and tried again, tried several times, whispered for her to please let him kiss her, with the same result. So, knowing vaguely that this was the way adults did it in similar circumstances and feeling dimly there must be some magic open-sesame in the words themselves, he had whispered: “I love you.” It was the first time he had ever said the words, except possibly to his mother, but they now had a completely different meaning. They did not, however, open any doors for him. The little girl’s reaction was forceful and immediate. “You’re lovesick,” she said accusingly in an almost angry voice full of contempt. “That’s what you are. You’re lovesick.” It was a word he had never thought much about or paid any attention to, although when he heard her say it he knew it was a word he had heard before somewhere, and it was clear to him in some subtle way that it was a word this little girl had only learned recently and was using for the first time with the same sense of surprised discovery her use of it was also giving him. Lovesick. He had got up out of the swing and left the porch immediately and gone home, leaving the two girls, his sister and the other one, there giggling. But instead of going in the house, where he would have to face his parents, he had gone around behind to the vacant lot next door in the center of the block, where the kids of the block all played, and sat down by himself on the terraced hillside of it, filled with a strange admixture of emotions the like of which he had never felt before, but the sum total of which was bad. Very bad, and very sad, and very unhappy. And whenever he thought of the two girls giggling, he felt sick-mad all over. It was a beautiful warm summer night, and the stars shimmered and shown overhead with a marvelous clarity and even the milky way looked bright. Lovesick. It was like some strange and terrible new disease he had discovered in himself without any preparation for it at all, and he kept saying it sickly over and over to himself: “I’m lovesick. I’m lovesick. I’m lovesick.” and he was afflicted with a sense of terrible doom that brought horror and terror and fright and helplessness into him through some opened gate, together with a vague, but sure, knowledge of forces at work in people that would inevitably, someday, destroy him. Finally he got up and went in the house to bed, and after that he did not think about the incident often but whenever he did it brought a sense of shame, and a flush to his face, and the terror, diluted now, would creep back into him, and when he awoke on the morning of Valentine’s Day he did not know whether he had dreamed about it during the night or whether he had thought about it just as he was dropping off to sleep, or whether it had just popped into his head for no reason as he was waking. But he was still worried.

The alarm clock was still ringing, its luminous hands showing at exactly four-thirty in the dark, and he shut it off and switched on the light. It was always exciting. Nowhere in the silent, dark house did anything move or stir, nor were there any lights, nor movement, in any of the houses he could see through his windows as he dressed. Savoring the daily excitement, he dressed himself warmly—flannel shirt, two sweaters under his mackinaw, warm socks inside his boots, knit cap down over his ears, heavy scarf—then he took up his heavy fleecelined leather mittens and tiptoed down the stairs to the front door. Outside it was steely cold and the handlebars and sprocket of his bike creaked with frost when he moved them. The air burned his nose like dry ice, and as he tucked the scarf up over it and put on his goggles, his eyes were already watering. The freezing cold air flushing the last threads of sleepiness and of reluctance out of his mind, he took off on his bike, giving himself joyously up to, and embracing happily, the discomfort which always made him feel important and as though he were accomplishing something, riding the bike downtown along deserted streets of darkened houses where nothing moved or shone and people slept except for a few boys like himself, scattered across town, converging on the Newsstand where the city papers would already have been picked up by the owner off the train.