Songs in Ordinary Time (97 page)

“But they’re not even giving us a chance,” Omar sighed.

“Us?” Norm muttered with a wide-eyed glance in the mirror. “Us?”

“You’re right. We need some kind of gimmick here. You know, like the big companies do,” Omar said.

Norm rolled his eyes. We? he mouthed incredulously.

“Have a big sale,” Benjy said quickly. “Sell it for half price.”

“We can’t very well take those kinds of liberties with your mother’s investment. She’d be losing money that way,” Omar said through his dismal gaze.

“Tell them there’s a prize in every box,” Benjy said. He could feel Norm’s eyes through the mirror.

“I wish we could,” Omar sighed. “Oh do I ever.”

“Tell them it’s a contest,” Benjy said. “Say the entry blank’s in the box.”

“Oh if only there was,” Omar said. “If there’s anything these ladies like better than a free juice glass, it’s a contest.”

“Then tell them we’re running the contest. Make believe you’re taking their names when they buy some soap,” he said. There had to be a way to make this work.

“But that’d be, I don’t know, promising something we can’t give them.”

Omar winced. “That would be lying.”

“Oh I know! I know!” Norm said, holding up his hand as if he were in class. “Why don’t we just tell them the truth! That we can’t go home until we sell the shitty stuff.”

Benjy squirmed as Omar turned and stared hard at Norm. “You know something, Norm, you don’t even realize it, but you—”

“Hey look!” Norm snapped, his chin out. “I don’t want to be here and you don’t want me—”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Omar broke in. “Let me finish. You just came up with a brilliant idea, and you don’t even know it.” He spoke rapidly. His 474 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

eyes gleamed. “You see what you’re saying is we can’t give them a prize, but we
can
give them an incentive to buy. Men go to college, they spend years and years trying to do what you just did”—he snapped his fingers three times—“right off the top of your head like that.”

Omar pulled onto the road, trying as he drove to come up with some gimmick that would make people want to buy soap. Norm was talking about the Christmas cards they’d once tried to sell. Benjy chewed his lip, expecting another blowup, but Norm was explaining how it had worked.

Every box sold earned them points, and with so many points they could order gifts from the card company’s catalog. The problem had been that they never sold enough cards to order gifts, most of which cost hundreds of points.

Omar had been nodding. “Points,” he murmured. “Points.” He glanced over at Norm as he drove. “Points for a scholarship! You’re trying to earn money for college, and for every box you sell the company gives you points toward a scholarship.”

They pulled in front of a small gray ranch house that was almost hidden by the weeping willow in the front yard. “I’ll let you do most of the talking,”

Omar told Norm as they got out of the car.

“I’m going to get this all flubbed up,” Norm said.

“All the better. I’ll let them think I’m checking on you from the company, and they’ll want you to do well. One more thing,” he said, with his hand on Norm’s shoulder. “This is very important. Always encourage them to pay by check.”

“But—” Norm was nervous. He kept looking toward the house.

“I know, I know. Cash seems best,” Omar said. “But they trust you more with checks and they’ll buy more if they’re not paying cash.”

Benjy prayed hard as they disappeared behind the silvery sweep of the willow branches. He reminded God of their pact: whatever it took for his mother’s happiness would be all right.

A few minutes later Omar hurried back to the car for the two bottles of liquid soap and the box of laundry detergent Norm had just sold. The woman was writing the check out right now. “She said Norm reminds her of her brother at that age.”

“A check?” Benjy asked, pleased but hungry.

“It’s okay,” Omar said, patting his breast pocket. “I just remembered my emergency gas money. I forgot I had it.”

He hadn’t forgotten, Benjy thought. He’d just wanted them to get good and hungry.

“Perk up!” Omar said, reaching in to tousle his hair. “Your brother’s a natural. I knew he would be!”

Norm sold more soap at their next two stops. “What were you writing in the notebook for?” Norm asked as they pulled up to a roadhouse that advertised sandwiches and hamburgs. “It made me nervous. She kept looking at you and then I started looking at you.”

SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 475

“I know.” Omar laughed. “That was the whole purpose. To make her feel bad for you.”

“She should’ve felt bad,” Norm said, walking inside with Omar. Benjy followed. “I couldn’t even remember the name of the soap!”

“I know.” Omar laughed. “It was perfect. That’s why she ordered the extra cans of spray starch. To show me what a good job you were doing.”

It was dark inside, cool and clammy. There were booths and a long bar, where Omar said they’d sit for faster service. Benjy looked around. They were the only customers here. Omar ordered hamburgs, a Coke for Benjy, and two beers.

The bartender, a short bald man with thick glasses, asked Norm’s age.

“Eighteen and gainfully employed,” Omar said. “I should know. I’ve been counting the days.”

“Eighteen!” Norm whispered when the bartender pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. “You gotta be twenty-one.”

“Not in New York,” Omar told him. “We’re just over the line.”

Benjy couldn’t finish his hamburg. The meat tasted spoiled. The roll was mushy. His Coke was warm. The bar was sticky. The alcohol in the air turned his stomach. He couldn’t look at himself in the opposite mirror.

Every time Norm reached for his mug, Benjy’s eyes darted to his hand. Beer suds glistened on Norm’s upper lip and his eyes were too shiny. Benjy wanted to feel happy, but everything had taken on this peculiar flatness.

“Remember,” Omar was saying. “People’ll buy anything, if you sell it right.”

“How come you kept calling me Charlie?” Norm asked Omar. They were still talking about their sales.

“Well,” Omar said, leaning toward Norm. He looked both left and right.

“You’ve got to protect yourself. There’s a lot of lonely women out there, a lot of crazy ones, too. Best just to keep a very low profile. If you know what I mean.”

Norm nodded. He had finished his beer, but Omar had taken only a few sips of his.

His mother had baked a ham for dinner. She flew around the kitchen waiting on them as they recounted each stop for her. Every now and again she would touch her flushed cheeks as if to check her temperature. She turned from the stove now to suggest that when Norm got his car running he could sell Presto on his own, on weekends and holidays.

“And school vacations!” Omar added. “The boy’s a natural salesman.”

“I got an idea,” Norm said, smirking for Benjy’s benefit. “Why don’t I just quit school and do it full-time if I’m so damn good.”

While Benjy was relieved to see Norm’s sarcasm dissipating under the steady stream of Omar’s praise, he was a little hurt that Omar had none for him. In fact Omar hadn’t even mentioned the sale at the parsonage.

“Well, now, there’s a thought,” Omar said with a hoist of his milk glass.

476 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“Don’t even think about it!” his mother gasped, eyes wide with feigned irritation.

“I don’t know, Marie. I’ve never seen anything like it. Some people just have the gift, and Norm’s one of them. He’s a born salesman.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said, and Norm looked up quickly, but she was grinning at him.

“Aw, people’ll buy anything,” he said with a shrug. “If you sell it right.”

Benjy looked up, surprised that it would be Omar Duvall Norm would quote.

“The thing is, you’ve got to have a real feel for people,” Omar said, cutting up his ham. “You have to listen to them. Some people are very, very lonely.”

“And very, very gullible!” Norm laughed, cutting his meat.

Benjy noted his brother’s protective hunch over the plate, with his elbows out and his darting eyes, like Omar’s, already coveting leftovers.

“Don’t say that,” she said quickly. She kept watching him.

“Well, it’s true,” Norm snorted. “I tell you, these ladies, they’ll buy anything. It’s sad, really. It’s like they’re all just waiting for someone to come along and be nice to them.”

“Well, in a way that’s true,” Omar said with a wave of his fork. “A lot of these women have been very disappointed in their lives. They feel stuck and trapped and helpless. So that’s what you relate to. That’s what you let them see in you. It’s called empathy. But the trick is to let them think they’re helping you, the whole time you’re—”

“Setting them up for the kill!” Norm called out.

His mother put down her fork. She looked upset.

Omar laughed. “Priming them for the sale is a nicer way of putting it, don’t you think?” He glanced at Marie. “Would there be any mustard? I don’t know when I’ve had ham like this. It’s out of this world.”

She got the mustard from the refrigerator. The cap was stuck, so she began to tap it with the knife handle. When it still wouldn’t open she held it under hot running water. “Damn,” she muttered, trying it again. She banged the cap on the counter edge. “Damn it!”

“Sit down, Mom. I’ll do it,” Benjy said, getting up to take the jar. Her hands were shaking.

“Yes, it’s quite a thing to see,” Omar said as he scooped mustard onto his plate. “All he has to do is smile and he’s got the ladies eating right out of his hand.”

“I’ve warned him about that, thinking that’s all it takes, just his good looks,” she said, staring at Norm.

“Oh Jesus,” Norm groaned, rolling his eyes.

“You know there’s a lot of people in some real messes that they didn’t do anything to deserve, and for you to sit there and belittle them like that—”

“Mom!” Norm threw up his hands. “I didn’t say anything! I’m not belittling anyone! Who am I belittling?” He blinked. “You? You think I’m belittling you?” He tried to laugh. “I wouldn’t even try to sell you soap!”

Benjy held his breath. She didn’t say anything.

SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 477

“You don’t have to tell Norm these things,” Omar chided with a look of surprise. Surely, he said, she knew better than anyone that her son was someone with substance, someone who had the eagerness, sincerity, and caring that are the traits of a great man. “Let’s give credit where credit’s due here, now, Mother,” Omar coaxed, patting her hand. He leaned forward and tried to get her to look at him. He lowered his voice. “You don’t always have to be so tough on him.”

She kept staring at the table. At first Benjy thought she was angry; then he realized she was trying not to cry.

“She just thinks she’s tough,” Norm said with a nervous laugh.

“Oh yah, well, you just better watch it, mister,” she said with the same nervous laugh, then blew her nose in her paper napkin.

Sales were better the next day, and even better the following day. Norm and Omar had such a routine worked out now that it was obvious to Benjy he wasn’t needed. But he didn’t dare change a single factor of the equation.

Omar had started giving Norm a few dollars of his own that he didn’t have to mention to his mother. At the end of every day, or route as Omar called it, they would stop for a beer. The fifth day was gray with showers. Norm had a cold and kept falling asleep in the car. By midafternoon, when they still hadn’t sold very much, Omar headed back to Atkinson.

“Aren’t we going to stop?” Norm asked, disappointed.

“Not with just five dollars in sales. We don’t deserve it,” Omar said.

“Hey look!” Benjy said as they drove past the park. “There’s Joey!” Seldon sat on a bench surrounded by pigeons. They were eating the popcorn the old man threw at them from the grocery bags at his feet. “That’s funny!”

he said, reminding Norm of Jarden Greene’s hatred of pigeons.

“Yah,” Norm said, sighing. “That’s funny, all right.”

Norm went to bed the minute they got home. Benjy was watching television. Omar and his mother were in the kitchen. A pot lid clinked up and down with boiling steam. There was the crackling smoky sputter of chicken frying in hot grease.

“Fifteen dollars,” Omar sighed.

“Well, that’s not too bad,” his mother assured him.

Benjy looked up. He moved to the end of the couch, trying to listen. They were laughing now.

“Stop that,” she giggled. “Stop that!”

He knew by the sudden quiet that they were kissing. He tiptoed past the doorway and went upstairs to wake up Norm. His mother’s bedroom door was open. Omar’s clothes were mixed with hers in a pile on the chair. His new shoes were next to the bed. And hanging on the bedpost was his linen jacket damp from the rain. In the breast pocket there was Omar’s pen and one check. Helena B. Olson, it said with today’s date. It had been made out for fifty dollars. His mother was calling him to supper. “Wake up, wake up.” He kept shaking Norm. He asked him how much money they’d made today.

478 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“Five bucks,” Norm groaned, pulling the pillow over his head. “Jesus Christ, will you let me sleep?”

“Was it a check?” Benjy whispered.

“Yes, it was a check,” Norm snarled, looking out at him now.

“Was her name Olson?”

“Yah, Olson,” Norm said. “Why?”

He told him that he’d just heard Omar tell their mother that they’d made fifteen dollars today.

“He probably doesn’t want her to start panicking again, that’s all,” Norm said, and Benjy agreed with him. No sense in letting one slow day spoil her good mood. Yah, they both agreed. They’d just make it up tomorrow.

He didn’t tell Norm that the check said fifty dollars. He couldn’t. He didn’t even want to think about it. But all through dinner and into the night, he heard Earlie’s voice, accusing Omar of
changing them checks, changing
them checks, changing them checks
, the words chugging in his head like wheels, turning round and round and round, going someplace, heading somewhere, if he didn’t say something, say something, do something, do something, do something, but maybe not, maybe not. Maybe it was just that one bad day, that was all. Just that one bad day and he loved her so much he couldn’t bear to see her disappointed. That was it. That must be it. That had to be it.