Old Powder Man (37 page)

Buzz said, “I don't reckon you've told me all that before.”

“I don't reckon I've told anybody,” he said.

“Is that so?” Buzz said.

“I started out working when I was fourteen years old,” he said. “I never have known how to do anything but work.” He had never had time to develop any hobby, the way Kate was all the time telling him he ought to have a hobby. He considered stocks and bonds his hobby. He said, “I never knew there was anything else to do but work.”

“There's not anything that's any better for a man,” Buzz said. He thought everything was going to be all right; he hadn't mentioned a drink again; if he'd go to sleep now, he'd be all right tomorrow.

Son stared ahead at a mirror on the wall. He could see part of the hall reflected, a pretty light fixture hanging from the ceiling. This was a pretty house, he knew that. They had clothes enough in the closet to wear and money enough to spend. It didn't seem like there was anything else in the world they could want, but they didn't seem to understand what he had tried to do; Kate never had been interested in his business. He said, “I certainly thought I had done everything in the world a man could do.”

“You have,” Buzz said. “Did it all alone too.”

It was a week before he felt any good at all, but he went down to the office for parts of every day. Buzz was having his side of the office painted and Son wanted to see how it was coming along. He had an idea about what to do with his business and thought about it a lot, sitting there. Holston said they still wanted him down in south Mississippi; finally he said it looked like he would have to go. The following Monday, he went, saw Winston several times while he was there, found the old bug juice had hold of him bad too. When he got back, he asked Laurel to come down to the office and see how it looked. All winter she had been helping out mornings in a nursery school and came down after lunch.

He showed her around the office and told her the plan that had been on his mind for some time. “You aren't ever going to make any money or get ahead any in this world teaching school, that I can see,” he said. “I've got this business I've worked like a booger to build up, and it's going to go out the window. I just don't see any reason in the world why you can't take it over. It just runs itself. All anybody's got to do to rake in the money is just sit here and answer the telephone. You could come and go as you please, have your own hours: take as long as you want for lunch, get off any time you've got anything else to do. You just got to show up enough to justify your salary to Uncle Sam.”

“Why Daddy,” Laurel said, surprised, “I couldn't take over the dynamite business. I don't know anything about business. I wouldn't be able to travel, go out to levee camps, do all the things you've done.”

“You don't have to,” he said. “Mace does all that. All you got to do is sit and answer the telephone and draw a salary.”

“I just don't see how I could,” she said.

“Well come down for a while and see what it's all about before you make up your mind,” he said and she agreed. He had worked all his life, though, not to have to get up in the morning until he wanted and they would go down when he got ready. The times varied. Each morning Laurel waited. Kate had said it was the silliest thing she ever heard of, only he would think a young girl would want to sit down at that office, cut off from town, and run a dynamite business. He said it wasn't silly; she was silly; she was the silliest woman he'd ever known. Laurel had said to Kate, Mother, even if I wanted to do it, I couldn't. I don't have any head for figures. I wouldn't know how to deal with all those kind of men he knows.

I know that, Kate said. Nobody but him would think you could. But you'll never make him understand.

If they went early enough for lunch, he took Laurel across the street to the Dixieland Cafe where, he said, they had the best barley soup he had ever eaten, except for one time down in the Delta. He told her about the time he had driven the dynamite truck and made a policeman who arrested him unload the truck before he'd pay the fine. He laughed a long time, telling.

He showed her the new filing cabinet, opened all the drawers, explained if they got a letter from Mr. Brown it was filed under B. Letters from U.S. Army Engineers, they had decided to file under E. If anything like that came up she couldn't decide, ask Holston; he knew more about the system. Happily, Son held up some letters. “Here's some correspondence from old Winston Taylor down in Clay. We write each other ever once in a while.”

Each morning after Holston had answered Son's mail, he gave Laurel the letters to file; there were seldom more than three or four. Afterward she sat in her office, filed her nails, read, wrote to George.

In his office, Son sat. Infrequently, his telephone rang. He answered abruptly, as if busy. Holston's continual typing filled the day's silence; Laurel found when the phone rang she tried to will it into being for Son. When he could sit no longer, he suggested they go home. Laurel went once to get cigarettes for him. Coming back, she met Holston in the parking lot. “Why isn't there anything to do?” she said.

Holston said, “It's mostly been done. And people don't use dynamite as much. There are cheaper substitutes. But if Frank felt like it, he'd be out beating the bushes finding other ways, wouldn't let the business shrink. As it is, he doesn't want to let go what's here.” They glanced up at his name across the building.

One day she filed a letter from Winston Taylor. Big 'un, it began, are you selling any dynamite? I hope to get through Christmas sober then will be conductor on water wagon. The letter went on to give an order for dynamite. Clipped to it was a letter Son had been writing when the order arrived. He had written: Skinny, I hear you been on a milk diet. I told you what the old rot gut would do. Why don't you get smart and lay off like me. Are you buying any stock? Do you ever get all your money counted? Are you making any money digging ditches? Has the thing been stiff lately? Don't you need some dynamite? We got plenty … Laurel slipped the letter into the file wondering how her father had thought she could take his place. More and more, she saw the differences in their lives. It struck her deeply, with sadness, that it was his struggle and the money he had made to provide her with an education that had helped to make them.

Sometimes after she waited all morning, Son would decide not to go to the office. One morning, after a month, the phone rang as they were about to leave. Having spoken, he hung up to say there was a Pitch game downtown somebody wanted him to join; she did not have to go to the office that day. On the next he slept until noon and never dressed. He never again mentioned her going to the office; neither did she.

He was always at home, sitting in his room, lying on the bed. Passing his door she would see him, but having grown up accustomed to silence there was nothing she could think of to say. She spent time in her room. Infrequently they met in the hall, often passed without speaking. Once, getting up from the bed, he said he had been lying there trying to think what she was going to do; didn't she want a job? There was nothing to do in Delton, she said, unable to admit or even explain the wavering inside herself. What was the point of a degree in English? To be a receptionist, the only sort of job ever offered her? Several times he offered money for her to take friends to lunch at the Andrew Johnson. She had to decline, could not explain that to him, either: when she was thirteen and fourteen, she and her friends had spent Saturday afternoon that way, not since. She had gone to New York and stayed a month but whatever she had expected to happen had not and, impatient, she had come home, trying to think of the next place to try. She and George still wrote; how could they see each other again? For her to go to California seemed the only way. Even if she had not been planning to go she would have said No to Son's next suggestion. “I never have cared about any such thing myself,” he said, “but I was thinking maybe you would like to join the Country Club. I'll pay for it.”

“No, I don't want to,” she said.

Kate got to the truth saying, “Frank, young girls just don't go join the Country Club by themselves.”

“I don't see why not,” he said and sat down to the phone. For a moment, he looked off, grinning. “Did you know I cleared all that land out yonder for their golf course?” He thought, he might not want to run around with society people but Laurel could.

She said, “Daddy, I don't want to join the Country Club.” He was going to find out about it. Kate sighed.

He spoke to the admissions secretary who said he would have to have a sponsor; did he know any of their board members? He didn't know whether he did or not; she read the names slowly and he had to answer after each one. At first, he said, No. Then he said, Ummm. Finally he said, Now I've heard of him of course. He said, Much obliged, and was about to hang up. Then he said, I knew a Mr. Rollins once was the manager out there. Mr. Rollins had not been there for some years, she said and he said again, Much obliged. He sat a long moment, his hand on the phone, then got up and went slowly down the hall, having thought all it took was money.

Before Christmas Laurel told him she wanted to go back to California to get a Master's; she had applied to the graduate school some time ago and been accepted.

“A what?” he said.

“Another degree like George was going to get, you remember?” she said. She told him she had decided to teach and would be able to get a better job. He said he hated to think of her ending up a old maid school teacher and he didn't think she had any business in the world going back out there; then he said nothing else.

Kate told her to plan on going; he seldom stopped what she wanted to do, just didn't understand any of it.

He had never observed wedding anniversaries or birthdays, had observed Christmas in his own way. He paid the bills, he had always said; that was his presents. This Christmas, Laurel came into the living room wondering if Christmas morning was ever sad to others. The house, decorated, seemed to wait for a party no one would ever attend, the tree by daylight was as melancholy as aging ladies overladen.

He had always slept late on Christmas morning. The trappings of childhood she had had, Kate had given her alone, and Laurel was grateful to her for it. Sometimes he had not even opened his presents; after a few days Kate did and put them away.

This morning, Laurel looked about the room at everything in order, before noticing an envelope pinned to the tree. She was moved not so much by what she suspected the envelope contained before taking it down and finding it did as by his having come into the living room secretly to put it there. It was a check for her tuition in a Christmas envelope from a bank. Opening it, she thought he had had to get it with her in mind. This was the closest thing to a present selected, wrapped for her, he had ever given her. She held the envelope close abruptly, suddenly wondering whether to go to California after all. But how could she backtrack? Changes that were coming were coming too late; he had even gone quietly about his holiday pursuits, was already tapering off three days after Christmas when she woke him at daylight to say she was leaving. Kate was backing the car from the garage.

“Why didn't you tell me?” he said, turning on the whisky-smelling and rumpled sheets.

“But I did, Daddy,” she said.

He said, “All I know I've learned is, a rolling stone gathers no moss,” and he turned back into the dark he sought, though she touched his shoulder and said, “I love you, Daddy,” doing away with fear to say it; it was the first time she ever had. She wondered if it made up for her going away, knew she might not if she stopped to think; but she had tried to stay and nothing ever changed. When she had found what she had to, someplace else, she would come back. She did not mean to leave them for good, thought less than briefly of his final words: “Let me know if you need anything. I want to hep somebody.”

On New Year's Eve, Winston came, Leila having refused because he would not let her drive. Son said, “It don't look like we can go anywhere with the shape he's in.”

Kate said, “I stopped expecting things a long time ago. I'm not disappointed.”

Son thought the only way to humor the old man was have some drinks with him, yet after a few Winston broke down. They were in Son's room. Closing the door, he got Winston to bed. He continued to sob and Son lay in the dark beside him, tugged covers close. “All right, old man,” he said. “All right.” Winston told of financial problems. Son gave him the best advice he could. Winston talked on, without control. Son told him he wanted to help him if he could, stayed on the bed beside him talking, keeping Winston covered and warm. Winston said he could not help himself, had been like this too long. Son got him to agree to go to a sanatarium, not only drove him there, but stayed all night.

Before midnight Laurel called. “What are you doing?” she said.

“Sitting here by myself looking at television, getting ready to go to bed,” Kate said.

Laurel was at a party and there was noise. “With Daddy?” she said. Kate explained and Laurel said, “But you're all by yourself on New Year's Eve!”

Kate said, “His customers come first, and to me it's just another night.” Sensitive to every nuance in Kate's voice, Laurel knew she had not been drinking and was flooded with pity. At midnight in California balloons fell, church bells rang and George kissed her. The next moment, alone in a strange room with people she did not know, in a part of the country to which she did not belong, she thought of Kate, moved to the window and looked out, said against the cold glass, Happy New Year, Mother, thought of the incomprehensible thing he had done and wondered why so much always had been.

Kate, taking decorations from the top of the tree, handed them to Sarah. “I hate for Laurel to go away—the telephone never rings,” she said.