I Can Get It for You Wholesale (27 page)

“Well, you keep quiet pretty loud,” I said.

“Because this is different,” she said.

“How is this different? Because I don’t want to take out Ruthie Rivkin, that means I’m a crook or a murderer?”

“No, dope!”

“Don’t call me dope.”

“Hold your tongue,” she said. “I’ll call you what I want. When you’re smart I’ll call you smart. When you’re a dope I’ll call you a dope. Right now you’re a dope.”

That’s what
she
thought.

“All right, so tell me how this is different.”

“Because this isn’t a little thing. To find the right girl is by a person the most important thing in his whole life. There’s plenty of them, they spend their whole lives, God forbid, without finding. And you, you got a chance while you’re still young, you shouldn’t have to become an old bachelor and people should laugh at you, you got a chance like that, a fine girl, with a nice family, who’d make you a good wife, and you don’t want her!”

“Well, maybe
you
think she’s the right girl,” I said, “but
I
don’t. And I’m the guy that’s doing the marrying, not you.”

“What’s the idea lying to me?” she said quietly.

I looked at her quickly.

“What?”

“You heard me,” she said. “I said what’s the idea lying to me?”

“Who’s lying?”

“
You
are.”

“About what?”

“About Ruthie.”

“Why, what’s the matter with you, Ma? What did I say?”

“You said you don’t like Ruthie, didn’t you?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly
say
it,” I said, “but yeah, now that you put it that way, yeah, I don’t.”

“Then you’re not a dope,” she said, sitting back. “You’re just a big liar, that’s all.”

I tried to laugh good and loud. But it didn’t come out right.

“You know you like her, Heshie,” she said quietly. “What are you afraid of? What are you running away from?”

Look what
I
had to get myself into!

“I don’t know where you got all those ideas from, Ma,” I said. “It seems to me I ought to know myself whether I like a girl or not without somebody else giving me any advice about it.”

“That’s right,” she said. “You
should
know. And you do. So why do you say you don’t?”

“If this isn’t the craziest thing yet, Ma,” I said. “How do
you
know I like her? How can you—?”

“Don’t worry,” she said, looking me in the eye. “I know. I could tell from that first night she was here. It’s true, isn’t it?”

I dropped my eyes from hers and began to play with the spoon.

“Stop bending my spoons,” she said, and I put it down. “It’s true, isn’t it?” she said.

I didn’t say anything.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she repeated.

“No,” I said, without looking at her.

“Well, we’ll soon see,” she said. “I don’t know what’s the matter with you or what’s in the back there of that pudding of a head of yours. But I know you like her and I know she’s a fine girl. Before one of those big tramps of yours gets you, I’d rather a fine girl like Ruthie should get you. And if you’re too much of a dope to know when you’re well off, so I’ll just have to see to it myself.”

“Yeah?” I said sullenly.

“Yeah,” she said. “When you finish eating you just pick yourself up and go into the living room. It’s now,”—she looked at the clock on the ice box—“it’s now a little before eight. I told her she should be here by half-past eight, maybe a few minutes earlier.”

For a moment I just looked at her. Then I stood up and smacked the table with my fist.

“That’s what
you
think,” I yelled. “What the hell do you think this is, anyway? What do you think I am, a baby? You can’t pull any of that fancy stuff around here, Ma. If I don’t want to see her, I won’t. And nothing you can say or do can make me. Understand? Where the hell do you get that—?”

“What’s the matter, Heshie?” she said quietly, looking up at me from the other side of the table. “What are you afraid of?”

She had the word all right.

“Who’s afraid?” I said.

“
You
are,” she said.

It looked like I was the answer to everything.

“Don’t make me laugh,” I said. “Afraid!”

But I sat down again.

“Now look, Heshie,” she said, leaning forward. “Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t think so. I think I’m right, Heshie. I think you like her and I know she likes you and I’m positive she’ll make you a wife like you won’t find again if you spend the whole rest of your life looking. But anyway, maybe I’m wrong. Let’s say for a minute, I’m wrong. Let’s say you don’t like her. But why, Heshie? Why? Tell me, tell your mother, why? Give me one good reason.”

“Aah, Ma,” I said, “you can’t give reasons about things like that. You either like a person or you don’t. That’s all.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But then you’re not so positive. But you, you’re so positive you don’t like her, you must at least have
one
reason. At least
one
reason let me hear!”

“Aah, Ma,” I began, squirming a little, and then I blurted, “she’s so damn Jewish-looking! You take one look at her, you see right away she’s a kike from the Bronx. For crying out loud, what do you want me to do, walk down the street and have everybody giving me the horse laugh because—?”

She flared up so suddenly that for a moment I almost couldn’t catch my breath.

“You crazy dumbbell without shame!” she cried. “So
that’s
what’s eating you! You’re a Jew yourself, aren’t you? Haven’t you got a little feeling in you? What are you, ashamed of what you are? What are you going to do, go around hiding from people what you are? Don’t think you’re so smart, Heshie. The world is smarter,” she almost screamed. “They only have to look at you to know. You can try all you want, you stupid dope, you, but it won’t help. I’m glad for once that your father is dead. He shouldn’t have lived to hear a son of his talk like that, I’m glad.” Her voice shifted to a sarcastic note. “So that’s why you don’t like Ruthie Rivkin! She’s too Jewish-looking for you, hah? And maybe
I
look like a
shickseh
to you? Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Dope. That girl is got more fineness in her one little finger than all the rest of those tramps you’re all the time running around with. She’s got more—”

“I didn’t say she didn’t have,” I yelled.

“Hold your tongue, my fine one,” she cried. “Who do you think you’re yelling at, those dopes that you got for partners?”

“Keep them out of this,” I cried, and was surprised for a second to find myself in a position where I was defending those two klucks. “I only said I didn’t—”

“Never mind what you said,” she shouted. “I heard what you said. You said enough for one day.”

Suddenly she dropped into her seat and was silent. I sat down, too, and tried to reach across the table to take her hand, but she snatched it away. She sat there, staring at her hands.

Finally she said, “Why do you bother coming home altogether, Heshie, if we’re going to fight like this?”

“I don’t want to fight with you, Ma,” I said. “I don’t want to stay away from home, Ma.”

“If this is what happens when you come home,” she said dully, “maybe it would be better—”

“Don’t say that, Ma,” I said, reaching across for her hand. She let me take it. “I’m sorry if I said anything, Ma. I didn’t really mean it.”

“That you’re sorry, I can believe,” she said quietly. “But don’t say you didn’t mean it, Heshie.” She shook her head. “When a person says what you said, it’s only because he
does
mean it. It’s a terrible thing, Heshie.”

“I guess it is, Ma,” I said, scowling. “But I can’t help feeling the way I do, can I?”

“No,” she said. “But me—I don’t feel like that.”

“But don’t ever say you don’t want me to come home,” I said. “I like to come home here. I
have
to come home, Ma.”

“What for? We should fight? You should say things you don’t want to say? We should holler at each other like two crazy ones?
That’s
what you like to come home for?”

“No,” I said. “And that isn’t exactly fair, either, Ma. This is the first time we ever even raised our voices to each other, isn’t it?”

“That’s all those things need,” she said slowly. “A beginning.”

“That’s not true, Ma. Don’t feel that way about it. I don’t want you to say those things. It means too much to me to come home here for you to say those things.”

“When a person begins to think and talk the way you do, Heshie, home doesn’t mean anything to him any more,” she said.

“Yes, it does, Ma,” I said.

“No,” she said. “You’re a businessman now. You’re a big businessman. You don’t think any more the way a son should think. You think the way a businessman thinks. What’s a home to a businessman?”

“I don’t care about what it means to businessmen, Ma,” I said. “All I care about is what it means to me. For crying out loud, Ma, this is the only place where I can sit down and take a rest without feeling that somebody is going to jump on me from behind. This is the only place where it isn’t dog eat dog. Don’t you understand that, Ma? You think I enjoy all this fighting, fighting, fighting all the time, trying to show people you’re smarter than they are? All right, maybe I
do
enjoy it. I don’t know for sure. Maybe I think I enjoy it because I know it’s the only way to
get
any place in this world, it’s the only way to make money and buy the things you want and really live like a person, not a dog. But whether I enjoy it or not, that’s not the point. The point is you can’t stand a thing like that forever. You have to have a place where you can sit down and take a deep breath and know you’re with a friend, you’re with a person that really cares for you. That’s what coming home here at night means to me, Ma. It makes me feel like a human being for a change. I can sit back and stick my legs under the table and eat your blintzes, without thinking about whether somebody is trying to put one over on me or not. Aah, hell, Ma,” I said, “don’t you see what I mean?”

“Sure I see what you mean,” she said, nodding. “You think you’re saying something new? Maybe I never said it in the words the same like you use, maybe I never even
thought
of it that way. I suppose maybe I didn’t. But
I
know that. You aren’t telling me something I never heard. What do you think I want you should go with a nice girl like Ruthie Rivkin? Because she’ll be able to wear the diamond rings and the fur coats you’ll be able to buy for her? Of course not. Because a wife is to a man what you just said. How long do you think I’ll be here for you to come and sit and eat blintzes and talk? I’m not a chicken, Heshie. I’m an old woman already. Never mind,” she said when I tried to protest. “What’s true is true. I’m getting older, Heshie. What are you gonna do when I’m not here? You’ve got to have a wife. You’ve got to have the right kind of a wife. I don’t say you
must
marry Ruthie Rivkin. Maybe you know another nice girl, a girl you didn’t tell me about yet. If you have, so all right. But that’s the only reason I talk all the time about Ruthie Rivkin. Because about
her
I’m sure. A mother can tell those things, Heshie. A young boy, sometimes he can’t.”

The hell he can’t.

“All right, Ma,” I said. “Let’s forget the whole thing. Let’s not fight or argue.”

“When are you giving the party in the showroom for the buyers?” she asked. “To-morrow?”

I nodded.

“So why don’t you invite Ruthie she should come down to the party, she’ll have a nice time, you can—”

“I don’t think she can make it, Ma,” I said. “You know she works during the day, and this is for the afternoon.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “For a thing like this she can get off a half a day. You just tell her she should ask her boss, that’s all.”

“Nah, Ma,” I said, “she wouldn’t enjoy it. These people are, well, they’re tough, Ma. They’re hard drinkers and things like that, Ma. A nice girl like Ruthie, she wouldn’t enjoy herself at all.”

She dropped her eyes from my face and withdrew her hand from mine.

“It’s up to you, Heshie,” she said quietly.

That was the trouble with hanging around with guys like Babushkin and Ast. I’d been softened by poor competition.

“But I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Ma,” I said with a smile. “When she gets here to-night—” I looked at the clock—“she’s due here any minute, now, I guess. When she gets here, I’ll take her out and show her a good time. All right? For you, Ma, for you I’ll do it.”

Yeah, for
her
I was doing it!

“Y
OU STAY PUT HERE
,” I said to the men behind the counter that the caterer had rigged up in one corner of the showroom. “All you do is keep mixing drinks and making sandwiches and whatever else you got there. That’s all. You just keep mixing them. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, and nodded.

I turned to the three others.

“And you three, you keep loading up your trays here with drinks and stuff and keep on circulating around. Keep moving all the time and keep your trays filled. Make sure everybody’s got enough to drink and eat. There’s gonna be a big gang here, maybe a hundred, and I don’t want anybody to be thirsty. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” they said, and nodded.

I looked at my watch.

“They ought to begin arriving pretty soon now. So all right, then, you fellows, you know what I want. Go to it, and if everything’s all right, there’ll be a nice little something extra for each one of you when it’s all over. Okay?”

“Yes, sir,” they said, and nodded.

It wasn’t really as monotonous as it sounds. I even liked it a little, the way no matter what I said they yessed me and nodded.

I turned to the long, low platform the carpenters had built along the wall opposite the windows. It stretched, like a stage, for about twenty feet down the showroom, beginning at the curtained doorway that led into the models’ room. I climbed the three low steps at the far end and walked along its length, dropping my feet heavily, to test its strength. It was good and solid. At the end I stepped down, parted the curtains, and walked into the models’ room.

There was so much noise and smoke in the room that nobody noticed me. About twenty girls were jammed into the small space, dressing, undressing, smoking, and all the time jawing away at each other. In the middle, fitting a dress on a platinum blonde with a cute little fanny, was Meyer Babushkin. He had a tape measure around his neck, a mouthful of pins, and from the frown on his face you would think he was measuring his closest friend for a wooden overcoat.