Juice (26 page)

He threw the newspaper aside and looked at her soberly. “I don't know yet.”

She nodded.

“What would you like me to do?”

She considered his question, and then said, “Assuming that you were really undecided?”

“Yes.”

“I'd like you to take what they offer you,” she said without hesitating. “That's what I want, and only if you're undecided. If you decide to go through with this, then I change my mind automatically and go through it with you.”

“Fair enough. Maybe you're too honest,” he said.

“Praise from Caesar,” she said, and touched his hand.

“Caesar's wife.” He smiled. “What time is it?”

“Quarter after eight. When do we leave?”

“Ten-thirty. Two hours.”

She nodded. Her expression changed, saddened; he thought she might cry. She shook her head at his look and smiled. “I love you,” she said. “It seems silly to say it before nine o'clock.”

“Stop being sentimental,” he said, “and give me a kiss.”

He tried to think it out again, from the beginning, but this was not his day to think. He admitted—in momentary disgust—that they had forgotten about Storch; that Storch, being dead, was now the last rather than the first consideration; that Mrs. Storch should now logically be the first, but that abstractions had intervened. We ought to be hard-headed, he thought. Mrs. Storch must have the money; in the end what is more important than that?

He brooded, wondering for an hour what was more important than that; he went to the window and looked out at the green and yellow morning; he smoked; he retrieved the newspaper and glanced through it. He sighed repeatedly. He went to the bathroom and came back and looked out the window again. He examined his bookcases. Books would not help today; whom could he turn to? Where, in Dostoevski or Dante, in Balzac or Homer or Fielding, in Gandhi or Shakespeare or Lope de Vega, in Laski or Lao-tzu, would he find the specific answer to the specific question of this day? They made answers for eternity, and eternity took no account of necessary evils; but, under the aspect of the moment, life was a constant choice of necessary evils. He went back to his chair and smoked again. He remembered the corpse. He asked his mind to recall details: the blood, the lunchbox like his children's. He tried to remember the moment of impact, his own emotions, and could not. Time had betrayed him: the tissues of his bruised brain, like the tissues of his bruised arm, were healing.

Fragments of the morning passed, distorted minutes, compressed quarter-hours, and when Helen came into the room he said, “I still don't know.”

“Can I help? Do you want more coffee?”

“No.”

“There's the mail,” she said. He followed her to the door, welcoming diversion.

The mailman rang, and when they opened he touched his cap and said good morning.

“Good morning,” they said.

He handed them a thick sheaf of letters. “Quite a bit today.” He hesitated. “I wanted to say I'm sorry about all the trouble. I saw the paper this morning.”

“Thanks,” Joe said, and smiled. As he smiled he thought, Manslaughter or no manslaughter, Christmas comes every year; and then he was brutally ashamed, and almost grimaced openly at his own baseness.

“Good luck,” the man said and turned away.

They closed the door. “Quite a stack,” Helen said. “Well-wishers, do you think?”

“Let's see,” he said. She passed half the letters to him. He ripped one open; it was from Beauregard's Market. He was stunned. “How long have we bought from Beauregard?” he said. They were moving back into the living room.

Helen looked up. “Why?”

“How long?” he said harshly.

“Seven or eight years,” she said.

“And when do they usually bill?”

“On the first.”

“Today's the twenty-second.” He handed her the letter. It was a bill for seventeen dollars and thirty-seven cents.

They went to the kitchen instead and sat with the letters between them. They opened them two at a time. “Schnell's Pharmacy,” Joe said. “He's never even bothered to bill us before. Twenty-four dollars.”

“The gas station,” she said. “They don't bill us either. Nine dollars.”

“The cleaners,” he said. “Four and a half.”

“Riordan's Hardware,” she said. “Sixteen.”

“The oil people,” he said. “Fifty-two.”

“Dr. Greiner,” she said. “Thirty.”

“Thirty?”

“Teeth-cleaning for the kids.”

“The cigar store,” he said. “Thirty-two fifty.”

“Moulton's,” she said. “Moulton's! I spend fifteen hundred a year with them! Everybody's clothes but yours. Twenty-one dollars!”

“Listen to this,” Joe said. “Suburban News Delivery:
for two-thirds of month of May!
One dollar and sixty-two cents. Please remit.”

“Bartzen's Stationery,” she said. “Three dollars and twelve cents.”

“Good God!” Joe said. “George Haviland, D.V.M.: eight dollars.”

They stared at each other. The morning light was stronger. Helen was flushed.

“The electric company missed out,” she said.

“They have four million customers,” Joe said furiously. “They'll get us tomorrow. It took them a couple of hours to find our card.”

The telephone rang. He kicked his chair back and walked angrily to the hallway. “Yes?” he said coldly. “Who is it now?”

“It's Mrs. Canby at school, Mr. Harrison,” the voice said. “You'd better come over if you can. There's been a little trouble.”

Helen drove grimly; they were at the school ten or twelve minutes later. Joe left the car before it had ceased to move, waited for Helen, took her hand, and pulled her after him to the principal's office. They burst in without knocking. Dave and Sally hopped off their chairs and ran to them. Dave had been crying; Sally was solemn and compassionate.

“Good morning,” Mrs. Canby said. “I'm terribly sorry about this.” She was a thin, pleasant-looking woman of sixty; she wore lipstick and seemed honestly sorry. Joe slumped into a chair. Helen and Sally sat on either side, and Dave stood between his father's knees, facing Mrs. Canby's desk.

“What happened?” Joe asked.

“Apparently Sally's class was quite good,” Mrs. Canby said. “There was only a normal amount of excitement and curiosity. And for a while David's class was also good; but one of the boys made up a song.” The principal was calm and factual; Joe wanted to thank her. She looked seriously from Joe to Helen and back to Joe. “David, ah, took exception to the song,” she said dryly. “He jumped on the boy. Then of course the others took it up; girls, too. It seems that David couldn't help crying, and when they saw the tears they went at it even harder. Miss Cross could not control them.”

“What was the song?” Joe asked.

“It isn't important,” Mrs. Canby said. “It was children's doggerel.”

“What was it?” Joe asked.

“I don't like to repeat it,” she said.

“Please,” he said.

She nodded. “Harrison's father's in the can, missed a light and killed a man.”

Joe looked down and said softly, “Damn them.” He put his arms around Dave. “Did you get hurt?”

“No,” Dave said. “I hurt him, though.”

“Good,” Joe said, and then: “No. Not good. I'm sorry it happened, Dave.”

Mrs. Canby said, in a rather formal, embarrassed tone, “I hope I don't have to tell you that I'm fond of you all and wish you luck.”

“Thank you,” Joe said.

“I suppose we should take them home,” Helen said.

“Sally needn't go, unless she'd prefer it,” Mrs. Canby said. “But David's class needs time to simmer down.”

“I'll go with you,” Sally said. “We can all go to the courthouse.”

“Oh, no,” Joe said. “You three can wait at home.”

“No,” Helen said quickly. “Never in the world. If they can't stay in school, they'll come with us.”

“I don't want them there,” Joe said.

“You'll have me there,” Helen said, “because I won't let you go without me. And they can't stay home alone.”

“All right,” Joe said. He stood up. “That breaks the camel's back, anyway. I know what to do now. I have no choice; I'm forced. Out of the mouths of babes. We'll take the finding, and I'll get off, and we'll never spend a dime at any one of those stores, and if that boy opens his mouth tomorrow Dave can beat the bejesus out of him. Thank you, Mrs. Canby,” he said wearily. “You've been a friend.”

“We'd better hurry,” Helen said. “You'll have to change.”

19

Frank Farrow greeted all mornings with pleasure. He rose early, habitually; he did not consider sleep a luxury and had to remind himself now and then that it was a necessity. His ablutions were leisurely: he marked each new day by bathing at length, shaving with caution, clipping or filing twenty nails, snipping the curly hairs that sprouted from his tragi, and standing himself an alcohol rub. Refreshed, rejuvenated, he considered the weather; he chose a tan linen suit, brown socks, brown woven shoes, suspenders (braces, at the Century Club; galluses, at the Farmers' Market) because he abhorred the bunching of a shirttail on warm days, a dark-green challis tie splashed randomly yellow, and, as he left his apartment, a soft tan Panama hat with a wide brown-and-white band.

He took his breakfasts at a diner, usually. It was a clean diner; he could have a table to himself;
everything
was fried in butter; and their coffee was excellent. Today, chipper, he ordered bacon and eggs, a muffin with butter and marmalade, and a pot of coffee. The waitress knew him and served him well. The odors of his breakfast exhilarated him, and the thought of a sequent cigar increased his joy. He mopped up yolk with the muffin, touched his mouth with the paper napkin, drank off the first quarter inch of coffee, and probed his breast pocket for a thirty-five-cent Ramon Allones. This found, he extracted a match from a folder emblazoned
United Fund Drive,
struck it, and applied flame to the cigar. He did all this with a conscious sense of ritual, and with conscious gratitude. He had been around for a long while, as he liked to remind himself, and he knew few men for whom each morning was a cheerful commencement; he knew many for whom no morning was. He knew that Biedermann, the Chief of Police, who had been occupying his thoughts lately, was dissatisfied with the world, and in consequence a bully. Farrow did not guess further at causes; they were no concern of his. He himself was invariably satisfied with the world: he was its agent—almost, he might have said, its surrogate.

Coffee down, waitress tipped, cigar drawing beautifully, he plucked his Panama from the rack and stepped into a glorious morning. He walked slowly toward his garage; he observed flowers, heeded birds, smiled slightly. At the garage he waved to the attendant, found his car, and backed out. He drove slowly, not often exceeding or falling short of speed limits, signaling at all occasions, on the watch for playful truants. He drove downtown and arrived—having disposed of the half-consumed cigar—at the Third Community Methodist Church in time for an Epworth League breakfast. He was simply a guest, not an honored guest and not a speaking guest. It was therefore a simple matter for him to decline food. “I'll wait for coffee, thank you. I'm not used to much in the morning.” Soon—even here time passed quickly for a happy man—the coffee was served; when the League president had puffed once on a cigarette, Frank Farrow inaugurated his second cigar of the day. The coffee was, he decided, below par, even for church affairs; but he willingly bore the small sacrifices his work demanded, and had even habituated himself to chicken à la king. At nine-thirty, his fences in good repair, he left, kicking up a wake of good will. He proceeded to the dry cleaner's for a gray suit, the hand laundry for his shirts (the Chinese vote was negligible, but the proprietor was a real friend, whose son Farrow had helped to bring to this country), and a stationery store, where he bought a carton of candy bars for clandestine
gourmandise.
He returned to his apartment and ranged the parcels. He then adjusted the band on his hat and left his apartment.

He drove east on a turnpike, paid one toll, and swung off into the suburbs. He liked these suburbs: they were more genteel than the city's crowded fringes, and less pretentious than the country homes ten miles farther out. Here the streets were wide, bordered with grass, shaded by hickories and elms. The houses were substantial and, within any one block, aesthetically compatible. The front yards were trim; there were rhododendrons, forsythia, and lilacs. The smell was comforting. Boys rode bicycles; there were full-stop signs and small girls with jump ropes. Matrons pushed shopping carts; he counted nine baby carriages.

At ten minutes of eleven he parked before the County Courthouse in Los Pinos. There was a crowd in the square; he raised his eyebrows reflectively. He paused a moment to examine the architecture and landscaping of the court-house; he framed suitable opinions; he went up the steps and into the gloomy corridor. There would be a measure of personal triumph for him in the Harrison case; it would cap his morning perfectly. He entered Room 101 and noticed immediately that it was almost full; there were no benches for the spectators, but they had been supplied with—or had scavenged—camp chairs. Three or four of the chairs lay stacked in a corner of the room. He took one and made himself unobtrusive in the rear rows. He saw Arthur Rhein but did not greet him. Up front he saw Davis' back. The lawyer was seated at the defense table—no, that's the wrong word, Farrow thought. There's no defendant without an indictment. The lawyer sat stooped and seemed to be reading. At the other table were two obvious assistant district attorneys, a policeman—Pearson, Farrow decided—a woman, and two men: the witnesses. Farrow glanced at his watch: ten fifty-five. He settled in his chair. It would not take long. He saw reporters, photographers. He examined the other spectators: local folk. Why all the interest? Newspapers? Television? He was momentarily perturbed, but serenity reasserted itself. Mistakes were impossible here. It would be all right.