The Feud (17 page)

Jack asked, “You leaving right now, under cover of darkness?”

“Naw,” said Tony. “That might sound good, but it’s more practical in daylight.”

“You going to walk?”

Tony smiled mysteriously. “I don’t wantcha to know too much, Jack. I told you that. I’ll be all right. You’ll see.”

“You’ll be coming back someday soon, I hope.”

“Why, sure,” Tony said. “You betcha.”

* * *

Junior Bullard had hated his father’s guts for several years, but now that he was in the nut ward of the hospital and Junior could do anything he wanted without fear of being discovered by his old man—smoking, drinking, playing with himself while looking at underwear ads in mailorder catalogues—he felt worse. He was also still scared that someone might find evidence in the ruin of the hardware store that he had been there earlier on the evening of the fire, drinking stolen homemade grape wine and masturbating while studying the picture of a woman wearing something called a teddy, which had a buttoned crotch that drove him wild to think about: all this by the light of a candle, in the storeroom, so that the flicker could not be discerned from the street. It was possible that he had left the burning candle behind on his departure an hour later, for he had been somewhat woozy at the time. But what could he do? He had no privacy at home. The only other bedroom was Eva’s, just because she was female, even though he was several years her senior, and his own quarters were in the front part of the attic, reached through a closet-staircase from his parents’ room. This was too cold in winter and impossible to survive in the intense heat of summer, so in such seasons he had to sleep on a couch in an alcove off the dining room. His parents, his father especially, had always favored Eva over him, and the situation had got even worse since she acquired breasts and began to use Kotex. He had never liked girls, but only in the past year had he realized how unsavory their personal habits could be if you were related to them.

When the three of them had finally been allowed to see his father, they didn’t go to where the beds were, but to a waiting room off the mental ward, and some nurse brought out his old man, who seemed all weak and confused and scared in his robe and slippers. And even then he looked mostly at the two women and disregarded Junior. Junior swore to himself that he would never get so helpless in life as to be led around by a nurse. He had previously acquired a determination never to operate a business where you had to kiss the asses of the public.

Getting home that evening was difficult because that fat pansy of a preacher had left and his mother was forced to go about begging for a ride back to Millville. Finally some old guy gave them a lift in an ancient coupe, and since there was room only for three in the front, Junior was relegated to the rumble seat, a place he dreaded riding in, owing to his dislike of being blown around by the wind.

When they got home there wasn’t any meat for supper, but his mother went ahead anyway and fixed a meal consisting of eggs scrambled with fried potatoes, and there wasn’t any dessert but applesauce. He felt like emptying the bowls in one big heap in the middle of the kitchen floor and then letting all the neighborhood dogs in. He could feel new pimples forming on his forehead, and he resented his sister for her as yet smooth skin.

After supper he said he was going, and when his mother asked where, he answered, “Out.”

Eva observed, “You’re real fresh when Dad’s not here.”

He sneered at her. “Shut up, you sap.”

“I don’t think you should talk to your sister that way, Junior,” chided his mother.

“So what?” said he, and he left, letting the screen door slam behind him. One of his chores was taking off the screen door when the summer was done; he had let this go for weeks.

It had long been Junior’s habit when heading downtown not to bother to go around to the front walk but simply to cut through the back lawn of the next-door neighbors’ and so reach the public sidewalk in the southward direction. These neighbors, the Durkeys, in summertime put up a low barrier of those white-wire hoops to discourage the crossing of certain flowerbeds, but Junior was none too careful about these and sometimes tripped on them and as a result trampled the flowers more than he would otherwise have done. He felt that this served the Durkeys right. They lacked the stomach to protest outright, but if they caught him at it, they might say, hypocritically, “Look out there, Junior. Wouldn’t want you to break a leg.”

He couldn’t see too well in the darkness now, but he went through the Durkeys’ yard anyhow. The Durkey house was dark. They had probably gone to bed already. They were the ugliest people in the world. Mr. Durkey had buck teeth and Mrs., popeyes and a goiter.

When Junior reached the sidewalk, he thought he saw a shadow behind the big elm at the next corner, so he walked out into the street. On reaching the point at which he could see the person behind the tree in the light from the nearby streetlamp, he recognized his father’s cousin, Reverton, who was turned toward the sidewalk, apparently waiting in ambush for someone to come along.

“Psst! Hey, Rev,” said he.

Reverton was badly startled. He jumped and whirled, and then he said, “By God, it’s you, ain’t it, Junior?”

“Who’d you think it might be?”

“Listen, I caught that Beeler snot up at the corner just yestidday. Now they know your dad is laid up, God knows what they’ll do.”

Whoever was responsible for the fire, if that potbellied dummy hadn’t mouthed off in the store, they wouldn’t have been blamed. It wasn’t Junior’s fault, but he still didn’t like to think about the Beelers.

He said, “Oh yeah?”

Reverton said, “If you got a minute, maybe you could take over for me here while I run downtown and get me a samwich. I ain’t et a bite since noontime.”

“Why, sure,” said Junior. “But whyn’t you just go to the house? Mom’s got lotsa eggs ‘n’ stuff, Rev. She’d wanna feedja if she knew you was out here on guard.”

“Mighty white of you, Junior,” said Reverton. “I won’t be but a minute.”

“If I’m taking over,” Junior said, “hadn’t you better loan me that gun of yours?”

Reverton took a long breath. Then he removed his black fedora and offered a rare view of his naked scalp, which was bald to the back of his crown. He looked completely different, sort of birdlike, when hatless. He returned the fedora to its usual place. “If you saw somepin that looks funny you can jist run and git
me
,
“
he said.

“I’d be outa luck, though, if they shot first and asked questions afterwards,” said Junior.

This argument had its effect on Reverton, with his extreme way of looking at things.

Junior added, “And if that happened, you might say my blood would be on your hands.”

Reverton took the pistol from his holster, reversed it, and presented it to Junior butt-first. “I guess it’ll be O.K. so long as you don’t shoot it.”

Junior accepted the weapon. He could hardly contain his impatience.

Reverton was frowning. “You better not hold it like that,” said he. “Put it away. Anybody seesya with it, they coont miss it. A gun can cause a lotta trouble in the wrong hands.”

“This O.K.?” Junior lifted the hem of his sweater and put the barrel behind the waistband of his pants, pulling the sweater down again afterward. The butt made quite a bulge. Junior patted it. The weight felt as though it might pull his pants down.

“You just stay in the shadows,” said Reverton. “No-body’ll notice it, then. I’ll be right back. Maybe your mom will just fry me a quick egg samwich. I’ll squirt a little catchup on it and be right back out.” He started off, but then he turned and came back. “You be careful, won’t you, Junior?”

“Heck, don’t worry about me none, Rev.”

Reverton nodded and walked rapidly in the direction of the Bullard house. Junior could hardly wait till he was out of sight. He felt like a new man. All his peevishness was gone. As soon as Reverton turned the corner Junior took the pistol out from under the sweater, and he hefted it in one hand and then in both. He caressed the cylinder and rubbed the scored surface of the grips with the tip of his forefinger. Then he put it back in the waistband of his corduroys and headed downtown to Curly’s Luncheonette. He had eaten hardly any of that lousy supper and was ravenous for a bowl of chili con came with soda crackers broken up in it, and a wiener covered with sauerkraut, followed by a wedge of Dutch apple pie à la mode, and a malted milk drunk through double straws.

The lunch counter was at the easterly edge of Millville’s business district, almost on the Hornbeck line. Thus to get there Junior had to walk through most of his town, which was not as taxing as it would have been ordinarily, because the gun against his belly caused him to grasp life in a new way. Usually he avoided walking down the side street where the pool parlor, with attached barroom, could be found, because the tough guys regarded that terrain as their own, and unless you were one of them, they could be relied on to give you a bad time till you were out of earshot. But, armed as he was, he now went eagerly along the sidewalk in front of the place, hoping to encounter some troublemakers, and he was not disappointed. Three bad-looking guys were under the lamppost there, and another was in a rusty, dented car at the curb. The last had moved over from behind the wheel to the passenger’s seat, and his bare arm, adorned with an American Rose tattoo on the broad bicep, was hooked over the window ledge.

The guy in the auto was first to take notice of Junior. “Well, looky what we got coming along here,” he said in his whiny voice, “a real piss-ant.”

And the three who were lounging around the streetlamp took up various positions on the sidewalk, so that anybody coming by would have had a problem in getting the right of way. One of these guys wore a felt hat adorned with various badges and pins and scalloped along the brim, and another had a big wide black motorcycle belt, dotted with silver studs and red reflectors, around his waist, but no cycle was in evidence.

Junior came along grinning, and he stopped to address the hillbilly in the window of the car.

“Hi, you shitface,” he said genially. “How’d you like to have a new asshole, right between your eyes?” He pulled his sweater up and seized the butt of the pistol and began ever so slowly to withdraw the barrel from his waistband. Before the muzzle was clear the guy in the car hurled himself over to the wheel, started the engine with an explosion of unmufflered exhaust, and thunderously sped away.

Junior’s back had been to the others, and therefore when he turned they were not prepared for what they saw. The pistol was out by now, and he held it straight down, against his right thigh, but it was as good as if it had been pointing at them. Their rapid exits, each in another direction, gave him a real laugh.

He considered going into the poolroom, for as it was, nobody inside could have known about his new power, because the windows were by town ordinance whitewashed on the interior so that underaged kids couldn’t see the pool playing on their way home from school. But his ravenous hunger had first claim on him, and he went on to the lunchroom.

The lunch counter was essentially a one-man operation, if you didn’t count the colored dishwasher, the owner, manager, and chef being a man named Curly McCoy, who had been gassed in the war and breathed heavily.

Curly was back of the counter when Junior entered, and the dishwasher, a tall, skinny man so lightly colored as to be almost yellow, was just bringing in a wire milk carrier full of clean dishes. There were two customers on the stools. One of them was eating a fried-fish sandwich on a bun, and on the plate beneath was a green-flecked yellow smear of tartar sauce. The other man, an old guy with no teeth, was dunking a doughnut in his coffee cup.

Junior stood back of a stool, and he said, “How they hanging, Curly?”

Curly didn’t like that kind of talk, and answered, “Don’t give me any lip, you runt. You want somepin t’eat, you just gimme your order.”

“Hey, Curly,” Junior said, raising his sweater just so the butt of the pistol could be seen.

Curly lost some of his florid color.

The old man withdrew his doughnut from the coffee, but it had been soaking too long and a third of the ring broke away and plopped soddenly back into the cup. Junior was really disgusted to see that.

He said, “You old dummy.”

The other guy kept eating his fish sandwich, not looking up.

Curly recovered a little. “That thing ain’t real, izzit, Junior? If it is, you better be careful. It could go off any time.”

“You know it could,” Junior said, grasping the butt but not yet pulling the pistol out. The man with the fish sandwich finally swallowed every crumb of it and was now sucking his fingertips clean.

Junior said, “Jesus,” and made a face.

The guy turned his head quickly and brought it back, without really looking at Junior. He said, “You talking to me?”

Junior drew the gun at last, but held it along his thigh again, pointing at the floor. He asked, “What if I am?”

This guy had a tinge of gray in his sideburns and a long nose. He pursed his thin lips and said, “Listen, it’s jake with me.”

The old man fished the soggy piece of doughnut out of the coffee and sucked it from the spoon.

Junior turned to Curly in disgust and said, “How about some eats?”

“Sure thing,” Curly said with animation. “Just have a stool, Junior. Coming right up!” He rubbed his hands on his dirty white apron and walked briskly along back of the counter to the swinging door to the kitchen, opened it, and went in.

Junior quickly understood that Curly wouldn’t be coming back. On an impulse he stepped behind the cash register, hit some buttons at random, and the drawer flew out to the jangle of a bell. He helped himself to the bills therein: only a few were there, and most of them were ones.

When the money was in his pocket he stared defiantly at the man who had eaten the fish sandwich. He asked, “What are you looking at?”

“Just minding my own business, Ace,” said the man.

Junior briefly considered taking this man’s personal money, but he decided against it: he wasn’t really a crook; also, you could never tell about a person who was so calm; he thought it was wise not to push him too far, because he wasn’t sure he knew how to fire the gun if it had some kind of trick safety on it, and this guy looked like he could take it away from you and stick it up your ass. Besides, he was emptying the cash register merely to punish Curly for running out before feeding him.