The Leap Year Boy (27 page)

“I’ll give you more than that later on. Let’s go.”

Half an hour later Delia unlocked the front door. Their footsteps echoed on the linoleum as they walked by tables stacked with chairs. Small pools of light dotted the floor. Beer and cigar odors hung in the air.

Delia spread the newspaper out on the far end of the bar. “Alex, you want to read the comics?” She poured a bottle of sarsaparilla in a beer mug for him and added a straw. “Your daddy and I are gonna talk in the kitchen, all right? You call us if you need anything.”

Alex was curious as to why they would leave him, but he was more interested in the serial adventures he followed in the funny pages.

Abe and Delia leaned their backsides against the metal sinks. She said, “You’re worried about Arthur, I can tell, but don’t be. He’s a big boy. He’ll be all right. He’ll make his way in the world, we all do.”

Abe shook his head. “Maybe yes, maybe no. But you didn’t bring us here to talk about Arthur.”

“That’s true. I want to talk about the future.”

The future? He wondered if she meant her future, or theirs. He tried to be solicitous. “Hell, I’m sorry you got canned, but I’m sure John will give you more hours.”

“I don’t want more goddamn hours.” She picked up a steak knife and stared at the edge. “Did you ever say to yourself that you wanted something different than what you got now, that you wanted to get the hell out of this town and this life? I have.” She stared up at the ceiling, then right into his eyes. Her voice was measured. “There’s a big world out there, Abe. I seen it—well, part of it at least, when I was in New York. People there, they ain’t all like us, working stiffs and fat women with six kids where a big time is going to a baseball game once a year or watching the fireworks up at Highland Park on the Fourth of July. I’m talking about skyscrapers and museums and plays and big automobiles, and women wearing furs and fancy hats, and restaurants where you can get any kind of food there is, and people from all over the world doing things, really doing things, making fortunes. I seen it, Abe. It’s for real.”

“What are you saying, you wanna go to New York again?”

She grabbed his arm. “Do you really like busting your ass every day for Shields, working like a slave? The sweat off your back has made him a rich man, and what has he given you, besides a few crumbs every week you call a paycheck? What does he care about the workingman as long as he’s making his money? Look, all I’m saying is, don’t you ever wish you could go places, see things before you die? I swear, five more years of this here life and we’ll all end up like Davy O’Brien, drunks, our bodies broken, just trying get through another lousy day.”

Abe let his breath out slowly The last few years had been a blur, with Irene’s death and Ida’s fire and the constant enigma of Alex, and now Arthur was gone God knows where, and who knows, maybe Benjamin was next, and he couldn’t get the touch of Hannah’s hands out of his head even though he was standing two feet away from Delia. The one constant in his life was work. At least he had that dull certainty to wake up to every morning, like they say in marriage, for better or for worse, but now here was Delia, her eyes blazing, upsetting his world even more with her wild ideas that he should quit and go gallivanting around the country somewhere. Skyscrapers. What the hell was she saying?

“All that sounds just peachy, Delia, New York and automobiles and all, and gallivanting about here and there, but where’s the money gonna come from? My name ain’t Rockefeller.”

“I already thought of that.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Listen to me, will ya?” Delia took out the letter. “I have this friend, a very good friend that works in the circus, Ringling’s. She goes all over the country, Abe. She sees things, she does things, she’s out in the world. Plus, she makes money, Abe, damn good money, way more than you and me combined.”

Abe laughed. “Well, good for her. But what’s that mean to me?”

“It means this.” Delia stuck the steak knife into a butcher’s block cutting board.

“What?”

“All you have to do is give me the o.k., and I’ll write a letter to my friend about how Alex can throw knives and darts like nothing else.”

Abe’s eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you want me to turn my son into a carney freak?”

Delia put her arms over Abe’s shoulders. “Not a freak, Abe. An act. An attraction is what they call it in The Greatest Show on Earth. People will go crazy over a little boy, a tiny little boy that can throw knives like he can. All he has to do is toss a few knives and we sit back and collect the dough. Good money, real good money, from what my friend tells me. $75 dollars a week! You’ll be able to buy him things you otherwise could never afford. You grew up poor, just like me. Don’t you want better for your sons?”

His throat was dry. Sure, he wanted better for his boys. He’d give them the goddamn world if he could. She made it all sound so easy. “So you got it all figured out.” He poured a glass of water from the sink. “What about Benjamin?” As he said it, it hit him that he’d forgotten to mention Arthur.

“What about him? Bring him along. You say he’s a smart kid, right? There’ll be something for him to do, to learn about everywhere we’d go—the Statue of Liberty, Washington D.C., the Mississippi River… He can write a report for his school work. Hell, he’ll probably end up writing a book. Besides, it’s only until the end of the fall. If it don’t work out, your boys go back to school, Shields takes you back, or you find another place. There’s always work for a good metal worker like you. I mean, what’s so holy about Shields Metals, anyway?”

She was right about one thing, he knew he could always get a job working with his hands, if not with Shields, with someone else. The words New Orleans came into his head for some reason he couldn’t understand.

“I don’t know. This is all moving too fast.”

She took his glass and took a sip. “You don’t have to say yes right now. At least say it’s ok for me to write the letter.” She kissed him hard on the lips. “It’s gonna be an adventure, Abe, for you, for me, for your boys. Life ain’t supposed to be all work and no play. You’re supposed to have some fun in this life, am I right? There’s just one more thing.” She held three knives in her palm. “Let’s make sure Alex still has it.”

*

Belle was able to finally convince Hannah that she needed to at least have something to eat and fix her hair before she went to visit her parents. Lillie buttered a piece of toast for her and asked her when and where Abe had proposed.

Hannah sipped coffee milk and held her cup in midair, in front of her mouth, and stared at it, as if it contained some fundamental truth.

Belle lit a cigarette. “Hannah?”

“What?”

“When did Abe propose to you? Your father will want to know.”

She chomped on a piece of toast. “Oh, that. He didn’t ask me yet, but I know he will. You know how I can sense things about people, see into their minds. He’ll ask me tomorrow, maybe, or Wednesday, but soon, surely by the end of the week. Fate has brought us together. Fate has brought my little boy home to me. He adores me, you know.”

“And we adore him, dear,” Lillie said. That much was true. The sisters doted on Alex when they could pry him away from Hannah. They had carved out a garden plot for him, and set up a large tin washtub in the yard for a wading pool. Lillie also had him reading passages from the Old Testament in hopes of quashing his Christian leanings. “But, Hannah, wouldn’t it be prudent to hold off telling your parents until Abe has actually said the words? Don’t you think that’s best, dear? I mean, this is such big news, and so sudden. You want everything to go perfectly, don’t you?” Lillie could imagine the expressions on her brother’s face when she told him during their weekly lunch at the Chinese Pagoda that Hannah had set her sights on marrying a common laborer. Even though he had declared he wanted nothing to do with Hannah since her “transgression,” as he called it, he and his wife relied on Belle and Lillie to keep them apprised of every aspect of her life. They had approved of Hannah taking care of the little boy only on the condition that Belle and Lillie monitor the situation, and that perhaps the responsibility would help her mature.

Hannah stood up. In a precise parody of her mother’s voice, she said, “Oy, what was I thinking, you are so right, and besides, although this Abraham fella is very sweet on me, just because a fella asks doesn’t mean a girl should say yes just like that, no? Better I should play a little hard to get.” She brushed crumbs from her dress and switched to her own voice. “Lillie, help me pick out a nice dress for the movie. It’s Mary Pickford, after all.”

Belle sighed. “Of course, dear.”

It could have been the stagnant air or too much sarsaparilla that made Alex’s head hurt. More likely, it was because Alex’s brain had begun to grow faster than the size of his skull could accommodate.

He began to explore the shelves behind the bar. On the one slightly above his head hung an open padlock. He pulled with both hands and jumped up to see what was inside. It was John’s pistol. Alex said, “Bang.”

Here was the perfect present for Arthur. He remembered how his brother had admonished him months before for stealing, but maybe that was because he hadn’t given him something he really wanted. The gun, though, he could take it to the war, and he could shoot the bad men with it, and every time he shot one he would remember it was thanks to Alex who gave it to him.

With his long arms, the pistol was in easy reach, but it took both hands to lever it out of the drawer. The weight of it sank his arms to the floor. He raised it up on the bar top and stared into the muzzle, his eye touching the barrel opening. It was dark inside and he wondered where the bang sound came from. He held the gun out in front of his face. He could see the bullets in the chambers, but the bullets wouldn’t come out, no matter how hard he pulled on them. How did they go out of the gun when the gun went bang? Maybe he had to hit it on the table. He could do that.

“Alex!”

A flash of pain bolted through his forehead from ear to ear as his father screamed his name again.

Abe snatched the pistol away. “Christ, Delia, why the hell isn’t this thing locked up?”

“John says if it was locked up and unloaded, what use would it be? He couldn’t get to it fast enough.” She took the gun and put it back in the drawer, over Alex’s objections, who cried that he wanted to give it to Arthur.

At the mention of his son’s name, Abe said, “Let’s go, Delia, Arthur could be home any minute.”

“Just hold on a second, will you?”

She took Alex’s hand. They crossed the room to where the dartboard hung on the back wall, three darts stuck in the bull’s-eye ring. She hoisted Alex up on a table about eight feet away. “Sweetheart, do you remember when you threw the darts and the knives? Do you?”

Alex rubbed his head again and thought about that day, and how all the men were laughing and yelling, and then after he threw the knives they were quiet for a second and then they started yelling again even louder. And he remembered how his father carried him around the room and everyone wanted to touch him even though he didn’t want them to, but they said he was good luck. He looked at Delia. “I did it for Davy.”

Delia stroked his hair, and her fingers felt soft, but at the same time the touch made his head hurt a little more, too. “Yes, that was a very good thing to do, Alex, very good to help Davy. It’s good to help people, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“So I was wondering, could you do it again, throw the knives just this one time, just to help me and your father?” She placed three knives on the table. “We just want to see if you still can do it, that’s all. Just for fun. We’re very proud of you, did you know that?” She yanked the darts from the board.

Alex looked at his father as Delia held his hand. He wished his head would stop throbbing. “But you said I never had to do it again.”

Abe swallowed hard. “Go ahead, son.”

“Alex, you don’t have to throw the darts, you can just throw the knives.”

He looked at his father, who nodded. He held a knife in his right hand. Something was saying to him not to throw, not to throw, and he thought he heard Benjamin’s voice. He couldn’t understand why his father and Delia wanted him to throw the knives, he’d only done it to help Davy, Davy was very sick that day. But now Delia and his father stood over him, smiling, telling him he was a good boy, but he already knew he was a good boy, and they were saying Alex you can do it, you did it before. And so. to please them, and to quiet the pounding in his head, he went into his tilt-o-world windup, and his long arms catapulted the knife on a trajectory straight and true. When he’d thrown all three into the bull’s-eye he asked, as the throbbing in his head subsided, “O.K., did I help you, Daddy?”

Abe watched the knives wobble in the dartboard. He felt a bit wobbly himself. What a wonderful and frightening thing this little boy of his was. He glanced at Delia, who was covering Alex’s head with kisses. He folded his arms across his chest. “Go ahead, Delia. Write your letter to this friend of yours. But I ain’t saying yes. I ain’t promising nothing until I know what the deal is.”

Chapter 22

During the week that followed, Abe was greeted every day by what seemed like a new and improved Hannah. In the mornings when he dropped Alex off, she would hand him a brown paper bag with sandwiches, fruit and slices of homemade banana bread and spice cake, which she told him she made especially for him, even though it was Belle that had baked it. She seemed as calm as a happily married newlywed, making smiling inquiries about his work, expressing even-tempered sympathy at Arthur’s disappearance, and although she was loving toward Alex, she didn’t gush over him as she had been, at least not in front of Abe.

Sometimes at work Abe daydreamed, amid the noise and heat, about her pretty eyes and how much more appealing she was now that, for whatever reason, she’d seemed to have settled down. So, when Friday came and she suggested that they go on a Sunday picnic, just the two of them, he thought, why not? Of course, he’d have to find someone to watch Alex.