The Winter of Our Discontent (20 page)

“Well, I guess that’s better than I deserve.”

“The old families must stick together.”

“Is Marullo part of the group?”

“Certainly not. He goes his own way with his own crowd.”

“They do pretty well, don’t they?”

“Better than I think is healthy. I don’t like to see these foreigners creeping in.”

“And July seventh is the sound-off.”

“Did I say that?”

“No, I guess I just imagined it.”

“You must have.”

And with that Mary came back from the wallpaper. We did our courteous duties and walked slowly toward home.

“They just couldn’t have been nicer. What did he say?”

“Same old thing. I should use your money to get a start, and I won’t do it.”

“I know you’re thinking of me, dear. But I say if you don’t take his advice you’re a fool.”

“I don’t like it, Mary. Suppose he’s wrong. You’d be without protection.”

“I tell you this, Ethan, if you don’t do it, I’ll take the money and hand it over to him. I promise you I will.”

“Let me think about it. I don’t want to involve you in business.”

“You don’t have to. That money’s in a joint account. You know what the fortune said.”

“Oh, Lord—the fortune again.”

“Well, I believe it.”

“If I lost your money, you’d hate me.”

“I wouldn’t. You are my fortune! That’s what Margie said.”

“What Margie said, is in my head, in letters red, until I’m dead.”

“Don’t make a joke.”

“Maybe I’m not. Don’t let fortune spoil the sweetness of our failure.”

“I don’t see how a little money could spoil anything. Not a lot of money—just enough.” I didn’t answer. “Well—do you?”

I said, “O prince’s daughter, there is no such thing as just enough money. Only two measures: No Money and Not Enough Money.”

“Why, that’s not true.”

“That
is
true. Remember the Texas billionaire who died recently?He lived in a hotel room and out of a suitcase. He left no will, no heirs, but he didn’t have enough money. The more you have, the less enough it is.”

She said sarcastically, “I suppose you find it sinful for me to want new living-room curtains and a water heater big enough so four people can bathe the same day and I can wash dishes too.”

“I was not reporting on sin, you juggins. I was stating a fact, a law of nature.”

“You seem to have no respect for human nature.”

“Not human nature, my Mary—nature. Squirrels bank ten times as many hickory nuts as they can ever use. The pocket gopher, with a stomach full to bursting, still loads his cheeks like sacks. And how much of the honey the clever bees collect do the clever bees eat?”

When Mary is confused or perplexed, she spurts anger the way an octopus spurts ink, and hides in the dark cloud of it.

“You make me sick,” she said. “You can’t let anyone have a little happiness.”

“My darling, it isn’t that. It’s a despairing unhappiness I’m afraid of, the panic money brings, the protectiveness and the envy.”

She must have been unconsciously fearful of the same thing. She struck at me, probed for a hurting place, and found it and twisted the jagged words. “Here’s a grocery clerk without a bean worried about how bad it will be when he’s rich. You act as though you could pick up a fortune any time you want to.”

“I think I can.”

“How?”

“That’s the worry.”

“You don’t know how or you’d have done it before. You’re just bluffing. You always bluff.”

The intent to wound raises rage. I could feel the fever rise in me. Ugly, desperate words moved up like venom. I felt a sour hatefulness.

Mary said, “Look! There it goes! Did you see it?”

“Where? What?”

“Went right past the tree there and into our yard.”

“What was it, Mary? Tell me! What did you see?”

In the dusk I saw her smile, that incredible female smile. It is called wisdom but it isn’t that but rather an understanding that makes wisdom unnecessary.

“You didn’t see anything, Mary.”

“I saw a quarrel—but it got away.”

I put my arm about her and turned her. “Let’s go around the block before we go in.”

We strolled in the tunnel of the night and we didn’t speak again, or need to.

CHAPTER EIGHT

As a child I hunted and killed small creatures with energy and joy. Rabbits and squirrels, small birds, and later ducks and wild geese came crashing down, rumpled distortions of bone and blood and fur and feathers. There was a savage creativeness about it without hatred or rancor or guilt. The war retired my appetite for destruction; perhaps I was like a child overindulged in sweets. A shotgun’s blast was no longer a shout of fierce happiness.

In this first spring a bouncing pair of rabbits paid daily visits to our garden. They loved best my Mary’s carnations, ate them down to raw crowns.

“You’ll have to get rid of them,” Mary said.

I brought out my 12-bore, sticky with grease, and found some old thickened shells with number five shot. In the evening I sat on the back steps and when the rabbits were in line I blasted both of them with one shot. Then I buried the furry ruins under the big lilac and I was miserable in the stomach.

It was simply that I had grown unused to killing things. A man can get used to anything. Slaughtering or undertaking or even execution; rack and pincers must be just a job when one gets used to it.

When the children had gone to bed I said, “I’m going out for a while.”

Mary didn’t ask where or why, as she would have a few days ago. “Shall you be late?”

“No, not late.”

“I won’t wait up, I’m sleepy,” she said. And it seemed that, having accepted a direction, she was farther along than I. I still had the rabbit misery. Perhaps it is natural for a man who has destroyed something to try to restore a balance by creating something. But was that my impulse?

I fumbled my way into the stinking kennel where Danny Taylor lived. A lighted candle burned in a saucer beside his Army cot.

Danny was in bad shape, blue and gaunt and sick. His skin had a pewter sheen. It was hard not to be sick at the smell of the dirty place and the dirty man, under a filthy comforter. His eyes were open and glazed. I expected him to babble in delirium. It was a shock when he spoke clearly and in the tone and manner of Danny Taylor.

“What do you want here, Eth?”

“I want to help you.”

“You know better than that.”

“You’re sick.”

“Think I don’t know it? I know it better than anyone.” He groped behind his cot and brought out a bottle of Old Forester one-third full. “Have a shot?”

“No, Danny. That’s expensive whisky.”

“I have friends.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“That’s none of your business, Eth.” He took a drink and kept it down, but for a moment it was not easy. And then his color came back. He laughed. “My friend wanted to talk business but I fooled him. I passed out before he could get it said. He didn’t know how little it takes. Do you want to talk business, Eth? ’Cause I can pass out again quick.”

“Do you have any feeling about me, Danny? Any trust? Any—well, feeling?”

“Sure I do, but when it comes right down to it I am a drunk, and a drunk feels strongest about liquor.”

“If I could raise the money, would you go for a cure?”

The frightening thing was how quickly he had become normal and easy and—like himself. “I might say I would, Eth. But you don’t know drunks. I’d take the money and drink it up.”

“Well, suppose I paid it right to the hospital, or wherever.”

“I’m trying to tell you. I’d go with the best intentions, and in a few days I’d get out. You can’t trust a drunk, Eth. That’s what you can’t understand. No matter what I did or said—I’d still get out.”

“Don’t you want to come out of it, Danny?”

“I guess I don’t. I guess you know what I want.” He hoisted the bottle again, and again I was astonished at the speed of the reaction. Not only did he become the old Danny I knew but his senses and perceptions were sharpened, so clear in fact that he read my thought. “Don’t trust it,” he said. “It’s only for a little time. Alcohol stimulates and then depresses. I hope you won’t stay around to see that. Right now, I don’t believe it will happen. I never do when I’m up.” Then his eyes, wet and shining in the candlelight, looked into me. “Ethan,” he said. “You offered to pay for a cure for me. You haven’t the money, Ethan.”

“I could get it. Mary inherited some from her brother.”

“And you would give me that?”

“Yes.”

“Even though I tell you never to trust a drunk? Even if I assure you I would take your money and break your heart?”

“You’re breaking my heart now, Danny. I had a dream about you. We were out at the old place—remember?”

He raised the bottle and then put it down, saying, “No, not yet—not yet. Eth—never—never trust a drunk. When he— when I’m—horrible—a dead thing—there’s still a clever, secret mind at work, and it’s not a friendly mind. Right now, right at this moment, I’m a man who was your friend. I lied to you about passing out. Oh, I passed out all right, but I know about the bottle.”

“Wait,” I said, “before you go any further, else it will look— well, you might suspect me. It was Baker brought the bottle, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“He wanted you to sign something.”

“Yes, but I passed out.” He chuckled to himself and again lifted the bottle to his lips, but in the candlelight I saw the smallest bubble. He had taken only a drop.

“That’s one of the things I wanted to tell you, Danny. Was it the old place he wanted?”

“Yes.”

“How does it happen you haven’t sold it?”

“I thought I told you. It makes me a gentleman, lacking only the conduct of a gentleman.”

“Don’t sell it, Danny. Hold onto it.”

“What’s it to you? Why not?”

“For your pride.”

“I don’t have any pride left, only position.”

“Yes, you have. When you asked me for money, you were ashamed. That means pride.”

“No, I told you. That was a trick. Drunks are clever, I tell you. It embarrassed you, and you gave me a buck because you thought I was ashamed. I wasn’t ashamed. I just wanted a drink.”

“Don’t sell it, Danny. It’s valuable. Baker knows it. He doesn’t buy anything without value.”

“What’s valuable about it?”

“It’s the only place nearby level enough for an airfield.”

“I see.”

“If you’ll hold out, it can be a whole new start for you, Danny. Hold onto it. You could take the cure and when you came out you’d have a nest egg.”

“But no nest. Maybe I’d rather sell it and drink it up and— ‘When the bough breaks the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all.’” He sang shrilly and laughed. “Do you want the place, Eth? Is that why you came here?”

“I want you to be well.”

“I am well.”

“I want to explain, Danny. If you were a bum, you could be free to do whatever you want. But you have something a group of forward-looking citizens want and need.”

“Taylor Meadow. And I’m going to hold onto it. I’m forward-looking too.” He glanced affectionately at the bottle.

“Danny, I told you, it’s the only place for an airport. It’s a key place. They have to have it—either that or level the hills, and they can’t afford that.”

“Then I have them by the ying-yang and I’m going to twist.”

“You’ve forgotten, Danny. A man of property is a precious vessel. Already I’ve heard that the kindest thing would be to put you in an institution where you would get the care you need.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, yes they would—and feel virtuous about it. You know the process. The judge, you know him, would rule you incompetent to handle property. He would appoint a guardian, and I can guess which one. And all this would be expensive, so of course your property would have to be sold to pay the costs, and guess who would be there to buy it.”

His eyes were shiny and he listened with his mouth parted. Now he looked away.

“You’re trying to scare me, Eth. You picked the wrong time. Catch me in the morning when I’m cold and the world is green vomit. Right now—my strength it is the strength of ten because the bottle’s here.” He waved it like a sword and his eyes went to slits gleaming in the candlelight. “Did I tell you, Eth? I think I did—a drunk has a special evil kind of intelligence.”

“But I’ve told you what will happen.”

“I agree with you. I know it’s true. You’ve made your point. But instead of scaring me, you’ve roused my imp. Whoever thinks a drunk is helpless is crazy. A drunk is a very special vehicle with special abilities. I can fight back, and right now I seem to want to.”

“Good boy! That’s what I want to hear.”

He sighted at me over the neck of the whisky bottle as though it were the bead on the end of a rifle. “You’d loan me Mary’s money?”

“Yes.”

“Without security?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing the chance of getting it back is a thousand to one against?”

“Yes.”

“There’s an ugly thing in a drunk, Eth. I don’t believe you.” He licked his dry lips. “Would you put the money in my hands?”

“Whenever you say.”

“I’ve told you not to.”

“But I will.”

This time he tipped the bottle back and the big bubble rose inside the glass. When he stopped drinking, his eyes were even shinier but they were cold and impersonal as a snake’s eyes. “Can you get the money this week, Eth?”

“Yes.”

“Wednesday?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got a couple of bucks now?”

I had just that—a dollar bill, a half, a quarter, two dimes and a nickel, and three pennies. I poured them into his outstretched hand.