Now and on Earth (21 page)

Jo was lying on the bed, eyes wide. "Are you going out now, Daddy?"

"Yes."

"When will you be back?"

"You go to sleep."

"Can I go with you?"

"NO! And once and for all, go to sleep!"

She turned over on her side. I gave her a little pat as I went out, but I don't think it helped much. She's not used to my hollering at her.

"Going out?" said Roberta.

"I've got to mail this manuscript."

"Why don't you go along with him, Marge?" said Mom. "You've not been out all day."

"Oh I guess I'd better not," said Marge, raising a magazine in front of her face.

Roberta said. "Now you just go on, Marge. It'll do you good to get out. I don't care about walking or I'd go."

So I said, "Sure, Marge. Come along."

Marge put down the magazine. "Do you really want me to go?"

"Of course I do. But hurry, please."

She was fifteen minutes "getting ready." Don't ask me what she was doing. Roberta gave me fifty cents for stamps; and I drank half a glass of whisky and smoked two cigarettes.

Finally, Marge came out and said she hated to go looking like that, but-

I grabbed her by the arm and got her outside.

I walk very rapidly. After we had gone three blocks, I became conscious that Marge was dragging back on my arm.

"Going too fast for you?"

"Well-how far are we going, Jimmie?"

"To the Post Office. It'd take forever to transfer around there on the bus."

"Well hadn't we better take a taxi?"

"Marge," I said, "can't you-" Then I caught myself. "Honey, if I had the money, you could have a dozen taxis. Don't you know that you never had to ask or hint for money when I had it? I want you to have fun. I don't want to deprive you of things. I'm not stingy-"

"Of course you're not stingy!" she exclaimed. "No one'd better say you are around where I am. I told Walter that if he was just half as good to me as-"

"Well, all the money I have is just enough for postage."

"But I've still got that sixty-five cents, Jimmie-"

"But Marge! You've- I've- Look. We won't go all the way to the Post Office. We'll get some stamps along here some place and mail it. It'll still go out in the morning."

"But we won't get to see any people then, Jimmie."

"Well-well, maybe we will."

We tried two drugstores and neither of them would sell us stamps. They had them, undoubtedly. But we didn't want to buy anything, so why should they sell them to us?

Then I happened to think of a chain liquor store down the hill toward the bay which I had occasionally-well, damn frequently- patronized. They had stamps, and they couldn't very well refuse to let me have some.

It was about seven blocks down there. With all the walking around we did, we might as well've gone to the Post Office. I mailed the manuscript in a corner box, and we started back up the hill.

"I'm awful tired, Jimmie," said Marge. "Can't we sit down for a minute some place?"

She was looking at a beer and cocktail bar half a block or so up the street. A place with a cinder drive and a tremendous neon sign and awninged windows. Its patrons were chiefly aircraft workers. That was reason enough for me to stay out of there. With Marge.

"I'll tell you what," I said. "Sit down on the curb and rest a minute. Then we'll go on home and I'll mix highballs for all of us, and we'll roll up the rug and dance. How will that be?"

Marge has moments of awareness. They are becoming rarer, but she still has them.

"Jimmie," she said, "what do you think I'd better do?"

"How do you mean?"

"You know. I'm no good for anything. There's nothing I can do, and there's nothing I can do about it. I tried to read those books and magazines you got for me because I thought if I could know some of the things you know, we could talk together again like we used to-and you'd like me better. B-but"- She drew a deep breath- "I couldn't even do that. I don't even have the sense to kill myself. Somehow, I still want to keep on living. Tell me what you think I'd better do."

"You really want to know?"

"Yes. But if it's anything like studying-"

"I think you ought to march right down here and have a drink and listen to the music a while."

The taut intense look-the awareness-vanished. She almost clapped her hands.

"Something just
told
me I ought to come along with you tonight," she declared. "Here, you take my sixty-five cents."

The place had a little dance floor and a coin phonograph and booths in the rear. There were only a few couples there besides us. Most of the business was at the bar out front. I dropped a nickel in the juke box, and we had a brief dance. Then the waitress was there with our drinks.

She shifted impatiently from foot to foot while I fished out sixty cents. I had seven cents more, change from the stamp money, but I wanted a nickel for the phonograph. Anyway, I didn't like the waitress' looks any more apparently than she liked mine, and a dime tip was enough.

I laid the money on the table, and she still waited.

Finally she snapped out, "One dollar, please."

"What for?" I said.

"For your drinks. What do you think?"

"Rum and cokes are twenty-five apiece. The sign out on your bar says so."

"That's at the bar. Back here they're fifty cents."

"You can take mine back," said Marge. "I didn't really want-"

"We don't take drinks back."

"Well you'll take these," I said. "Sixty cents is all I've got."

"Say," she said, "what kind of a gyp is this? I got to pay for them drinks myself. I got to pay for them before I brought 'em back here to you. You come in here an' order drinks an'…"

The music had stopped, and everyone was watching us. Watching and listening. It was my pet nightmare come to life. I got nervous and started to pick up my drink, and the waitress snatched it out of my hand.

"No, you don't! I'll throw 'em down the drain first! You gimme that money, an' if you ever show up in here again-"

"What goes on, Mame?" It was Gross.

"Oh, hello, Butch. This guy's tryin' to get out without payin' for-"

"Aw nuts," said Gross. "These people are friends of mine." He opened his billfold and shoved something into her hand. "Bring me a drink and then bring us another drink all around."

The waitress took the money and glanced sidewise at me. "I'm sorry, mister. There's so many guys come in here, an' I got to pay out of my own pocket…"

"That's all right," I said. I knew how it had been with Frankie.

Gross sat down and, naturally, I introduced Marge.

"You're a lot better looking than your brother," he said. "Dilly, you're sure she's your sister? She's not your daughter, now, is she?"

Marge ducked her head and looked up at him kittenishly. "Now Mr. Gross! Jimmie's only three years older than I am. You shouldn't say things like that." She gave him a delicate tap on the arm.

"Oh that's all right. Dilly won't get mad. Dilly's the best friend I've got."

It may have been true, relatively speaking. Anyway, I couldn't very well deny it to his face. And I was grateful for being pulled out of a hole.

They danced, and then they kept on dancing, and I noticed that Marge's jaws were moving pretty steadily. But-well, I sat there smoking and drinking and my mind drifted off onto something else. A dozen other things.

When I came out of it, it was eleven-thirty.

Marge didn't want to leave then, but a reminder as to how Roberta was going to feel induced her. Gross drove us home.

"If you'll wait just a minute," I said, "I'll get you the money for those drinks."

"What's the matter?" he said, an ugly note creeping into his voice. "Ain't I good enough to buy you a drink?"

"We're both working for wages," I said. "You need your money as much as I need mine."

He didn't say anything. Marge said afterward that I was "awful cool" toward him and it was no wonder I made him mad. But I don't think that had anything to do with what happened. He saw a chance to push himself ahead at my expense and he would have done it, eventually, no matter what I said or did.

I got the money and virtually pulled Marge out of the car. And we started up the walk to the porch. Then I saw that Gross had stopped the car and was rolling down the window. I hesitated, thinking he had something to say. He did have.

"Good night, Comrade," he called.

And his mean cackle floated back to us as he raced away.

I grabbed Marge. "What did you tell that guy?"

"W-why nothing, Jimmie. I was just telling him about the books I'd been reading and he wanted to know why, and-yes, I did tell him about how you got out here…"

I couldn't eat anything. I didn't have any stomach. I took a couple of stiff drinks, but they stopped at my tonsils and made a round trip before I'd gone a block.

I got through the gate safely and went inside. It was almost seven but there wasn't anyone in the stockroom that I could see. I sat down on my stool and sort of pulled myself together. Then the whistle blew, and I saw Gross stick his head around the corner of a rack at the far end of the room. I stared straight at him, and he marched boldly out. Behind him came Moon, Murphy, and the others.

I turned around to my desk and waited. Went to work. There wasn't anything else to do.

They all kept away from me that morning. All except Murphy, that is. About ten o'clock he came around to look at a card. As he studied it he said from the corner of his mouth:

"I'm taking off at noon. If you've got anything at home you want to get rid of, give me a note and I'll do it for you."

I didn't have anything. If I had, I wouldn't have fallen for a gag as old as that. At least, I thought it was a gag.

"Thanks," I said. "I don't have anything I'm afraid for anyone to see."

"Okay. I know how you feel."

I didn't go outside at noon, badly as I wanted a smoke. I was afraid my legs would tremble if I walked around very much. And, somehow, I felt safer inside.

One o'clock came. Two. Two-thirty. One hour to go.

And I knew I wasn't going to get through it. The skies were going to fall before I could get out of there.

Suddenly I didn't care if they did. I ceased to be afraid. I had worried all I could and been afraid all I could, so I just stopped. Perhaps you've had the same sort of thing happen to you.

Three o'clock.

The phone rang. Moon picked it up. He has been very quick to answer the phone since Mom started calling. I hoped it wasn't Mom this time. I knew it wouldn't affect what was going to happen to me, but I just didn't want her to call. I didn't want to go out of there with Moon hating me any more than he did.

"How about a shortage on wing, Dilly?" he said phlegmatically. "Can you get it out?"

I nodded. And then, because I wanted to get everything in order, because as long as I live I will have to make changes, do things I think should be done, I said:

"Why don't we have a Purchased-Parts shortage to tie in with it? I've been thinking lately why worry about plant parts when we don't have the rivets and other stuff to put them together with?"

"All right," said Moon. "You go tell Vail to give you his shortages."

"Don't you think you'd better tell him?" I said.

He turned away without answering.

I got off my stool and walked up to Purchased-Parts. Vail was weighing up bolts on the computing scales. Busken was sacking.

"What do you say, Red?" said Vail.

"How about giving me a shortage on wing?" I said.

"What do you want with it, Red?"

"I want it to-"

"Want it to send to Russia, Red?"

"Now look here," I said. "Moon told me to-" Then I jumped three feet in the air. I turned, half-squatting, sick with pain. I don't think anyone can know how much those piles hurt. Busken was holding the broom, giggling, still fencing at me with the end of it.

"He, he! Mustn't jump so high, Red. Might drop a bomb out of-"

I snatched the broom from his hands and brought it down on his head. Rather, I aimed at his head. He threw his head back and the tough sharp straws swept down across his face. Instantly it was bleeding in a dozen places.

I was sorry, of course, as soon as I'd done it. But Vail had to choose that moment to say the thing that infuriates me more than any other.

"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

So I let him have it, too. And I did get him in the head.

Then Gross was trotting up, pushing his way around them. This was what he had been waiting for-the chance to put himself in good with everyone.

"Let me get him, guys. Just let me get ahold of the Red son-of-a-"

I swung on him. Not with the broom, but with a two-pound sack of bolts. I don't know why it didn't kill him.

Then the guards came.