Short Stories: Five Decades (123 page)

Katherine’s face set in grim lines. “I saw you in the library at eight o’clock at night, Wednesday.”

“The library’s different,” Harold said weakly. “My mother makes an exception.”

“You could tell her you were going to the library,” Katherine said. “What’s to stop you?”

Harold took a deep, miserable breath. “Every time I lie my mother knows it,” he said. “Anyway, you shouldn’t lie to your mother.”

Katherine’s lip curled with cold amusement. “You make me laugh,” she said.

They came to the entrance to the apartment house in which Harold lived, and halted.

“In the afternoons,” Katherine said, “a lot of times nobody’s home in the afternoons but me. On your way home from school you could whistle when you pass my window, my room’s in front, and I could open the window and whistle back.”

“I’m awful busy,” Harold said, noticing uneasily that Johnson, the doorman, was watching him. “I’ve got baseball practice with the Montauk A.C. every afternoon and I got to practice the violin a hour a day and I’m behind in history, there’s a lot of chapters I got to read before next month and …”

“I’ll walk home every afternoon with you,” Katherine said. “From school. You have to walk home from school, don’t you?”

Harold sighed. “We practice in the school orchestra almost every afternoon.” He stared unhappily at Johnson, who was watching him with the knowing, cynical expression of doormen who see everyone leave and everyone enter and have their own opinions of all entrances and exits. “We’re working on ‘Poet and Peasant’ and it’s very hard on the first violins and I never know what time we’ll finish and …”

“I’ll wait for you,” Katherine said, looking straight into his eyes, bitterly, not hiding anything. “I’ll sit at the girls’ entrance and I’ll wait for you.”

“Sometimes,” said Harold, “we don’t get through till five o’clock.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

Harold looked longingly at the doorway to the apartment house, heavy gilt iron and cold glass. “I’ll admit something,” he said. “I don’t like girls very much. I got a lot of other things on my mind.”

“You walk home from school with Elaine,” Katherine said. “I’ve seen you.”

“O.K.,” Harold shouted, wishing he could punch the rosy, soft face, the large, coldly accusing blue eyes, the red, quivering lips. “O.K.!” he shouted, “I walk home with Elaine! What’s it to you? I like to walk home with Elaine! Leave me alone! You’ve got Charley Lynch. He’s a big hero, he pitches for the baseball team. I couldn’t even play right field. Leave me alone!”

“I don’t want him!” Katherine shouted. “I’m not interested in Charley Lynch! I hate you!” she cried, “I hate you! I’m going to retire to a nunnery!”

“Good!” Harold said. “Very good!” He opened the door of the apartment house. Johnson watched him coldly, unmoving, knowing everything.

“Harold,” Katherine said softly, touching his arm sorrowfully, “Harold—if you happen to pass my house, whistle ‘Begin the Beguine.’ Then I’ll know it’s you. ‘Begin the Beguine,’ Harold …”

He shook her hand off, went inside. She watched him walk without looking back at her, open the elevator door, go in, press a button. The door closed finally and irrevocably behind him. The tears nearly came, but she fought them down. She looked miserably up at the fourth-story window behind which he slept.

She turned and dragged slowly down the block toward her own house. As she reached the corner, her eyes on the pavement before her, a boy spurted out and bumped her.

“Oh, excuse me,” said the boy. She looked up.

“What do you want, Charley?” she asked coldly.

Charley Lynch smiled at her, forcing it. “Isn’t it funny, my bumping into you? Actually bumping into you. I wasn’t watching where I was going, I was thinking of something else and …”

“Yeah,” said Katherine, starting briskly toward home. “Yeah.”

“You want to know what I was thinking about?” Charley asked softly, falling in beside her.

“Excuse me,” Katherine said, throwing her head back, all tears gone, looking at a point thirty feet up in the evening sky. “I’m in a hurry.”

“I was thinking of that night two months ago,” Charley said quickly. “That party Norah O’Brien gave. That night I took you home and I kissed your neck. Remember that?”

“No,” she said. She walked at top speed across the street corner, down the row of two-story houses, all alike, with the children playing potsy and skating and leaping out from behind stoops and going, “A-a-a-a-a-a-h,” pointing pistols and machine guns at each other. “Pardon me, I’ve got to get home and mind the baby; my mother has to go out.”

“You weren’t in a hurry with Harold,” Charley said, his eyes hot and dry, as he matched her step for step. “You walked slow enough with him.”

Katherine looked briefly and witheringly at Charley Lynch. “I don’t know why you think that’s your business,” she said. “It’s my own affair.”

“Last month,” Charley said, “you used to walk home with me.”

“That was last month,” Katherine said loudly.

“What’ve I done?” Pain sat clearly on Charley Lynch’s face, plain over the freckles and the child’s nose with the bump on it where a baseball bat had once hit it. “Please tell me what I’ve done, Katie.”

“Nothing,” said Katherine, her voice bored and businesslike. “Absolutely nothing.”

Charley Lynch avoided three small children who were dueling seriously with wooden swords that clanged on the garbage-pail cover shields with which they protected themselves. “I must have done something,” he said sorrowfully.

“Nothing!” Katherine’s tones were clipped and final.

“Put ’em up, Stranger!” a seven-year-old boy said right in front of Charley. He had a pistol and was pointing it at a boy who had another pistol. “This town ain’t big enough for you and me, Stranger,” said the first little boy as Charley went around him, keeping his eyes on Katherine. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours and then come out shooting.”

“Oh, yeah?” said the second little boy with the pistol.

“Do you want to go to the movies tonight?” Charley asked eagerly, rejoining Katherine, safely past the Westerners. “Cary Grant. Everybody says it’s a very funny picture.”

“I would love to go,” said Katherine, “but I’ve got to catch up on my reading tonight.”

Charley walked silently among the dueling, wrestling, gun-fighting children. Katherine walked slightly ahead of him, head up, pink and round and rosy-kneed, and Charley looked at the spot on her neck where he had kissed her for the first time and felt his soul drop out of his body.

He laughed suddenly, falsely. Katherine didn’t even look at him. “I was thinking about that feller,” Charley said. “That Harold. What a name—Harold! He went out for the baseball team and the coach threw him out the first day. The coach hit three balls at him and they went right through his legs. Then he hit another one at him and it bounced and smacked him right in the nose. You should’ve seen the look on that Harold’s face.” Charley chuckled shrilly. “We all nearly died laughing. Right square in the nose. You know what all the boys call him? ‘Four-eyed Oscar.’ He can’t see first base from home plate. ‘Four-eyed Oscar.’ Isn’t that funny?” Charley asked miserably.

“He’s very nice about you,” Katherine turned into the vestibule of her own house. “He tells me he admires you very much; he thinks you’re a nice boy.”

The last trace of the manufactured smile left Charley’s face. “None of the other girls can stand him,” Charley said flatly. “They laugh at him.”

Katherine smiled secretly, remembering the little girls’ conversations in the wardrobes and at recess.

“You think I’m lying!” Charley shouted. “Just ask.”

Katherine shrugged coolly, her hand on the inner door leading to her house. Charley moved close to her in the vestibule gloom.

“Come to the movies with me,” he whispered. “Please, Katie, please …”

“As I told you,” she said, “I’m busy.”

He put his hand out gropingly, touched hers. “Katie,” he begged.

She pulled her hand away sharply, opened the door. “I haven’t the time,” she said loudly.

“Please, please …” he whispered.

Katherine shook her head.

Charley spread his arms slowly, lunged for Katherine, hugged her, tried to kiss her. She pulled her head savagely to the side, kicked him sharply in the shins. “Please …” Charley wept.

“Get out of here!” Katherine slapped his chest with her hands.

Charley backed up. “You used to let me kiss you,” he said. “Why not now?”

“I can’t be bothered,” Katherine pulled down her dress with sharp, decisive, warning movements.

“I’ll tell your mother,” Charley shouted desperately. “You’re going around with a Methodist! With a Protestant!”

Katherine’s eyes grew large with fury, her cheeks flooded with blood, her mouth tightened. “Now get out of here!” she said. “I’m through with you! I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want you to follow me around!”

“I’ll walk wherever I goddamn please!” Charley yelled.

“I heard what you said,” Katherine said. “I heard the word you used.”

“I’ll follow whoever I goddamn please!” Charley yelled even louder. “This is a free country.”

“I’ll never talk to you as long as I live,” Katherine stamped for emphasis, and her voice rang off the mailboxes and doorknobs of the vestibule. “You bore me! I’m not interested in you. You’re stupid! I don’t like you. You’re a big idiot! Go home!”

“I’ll break his neck for him!” Charley shouted, his eyes clouded, his hands waving wildly in front of Katherine’s face. “I’ll show him! A violin player! When I get through with him you won’t be so anxious to be seen with him. Do you kiss him?”

“Yes!” Katherine’s voice clanged triumphantly. “I kiss him all the time. And he really knows how to kiss! He doesn’t slobber all over a girl, like you!”

“Please,” Charley whimpered, “please …” Hands out gropingly, he went toward Katherine. She drew back her arm coldly, and with all her round, solid, well-nourished eighty-five pounds, caught him across the face, turned, and fled up the stairs.

“I’ll kill him!” Charley roared up the stairwell. “I’ll kill that violinist with my bare hands!”

The door slammed in answer.

“Please tell Mr. Harold Pursell,” Charley said soberly to Johnson, the doorman, “that a certain friend of his is waiting downstairs; he would like to see him, if it’s convenient.”

Johnson went up in the elevator and Charley looked with grim satisfaction around the circle of faces of his eight friends, who had come with him to see that everything was carried out in proper order.

Harold stepped out of the elevator, walked toward the boys grouped at the doorway. He peered curiously and short-sightedly at them, as he approached, neat, clean, white-fingered, with his glasses.

“Hello,” Charley stepped out and faced Harold. “I would like to talk to you in private.”

Harold looked around at the silent ring of faces, drained of pity, brimming with punishment. He sighed, realizing what he was in for.

“All right,” he said, and opened the door, holding it while all the boys filed out.

The walk to the vacant lot in the next block was performed in silence, broken only by the purposeful tramp of Charley Lynch’s seconds.

“Take off your glasses,” Charley said when they reached the exact center of the lot.

Harold took off his glasses, looked hesitantly for a place to put them.

“I’ll hold them,” Sam Rosenberg, Charley’s lieutenant, said politely.

“Thanks,” Harold said, giving him the glasses. He turned and faced Charley, blinking slowly. He put up his hands. “O.K.” he said.

Charley stood there, breathing deeply, his enemy, blinking, thin-armed, pale, twenty pounds lighter than Charley, before him. A deep wave of exultation rolled through Charley’s blood. He put up his hands carefully, stepped in and hit Harold square on the eye with his right hand.

The fight did not take long, although it took longer than Charley had expected. Harold kept punching, advancing into the deadly fire of Charley’s fists, the most potent and sharp and brutal in the whole school. Harold’s face smeared immediately with blood, and his eye closed, and his shirt tore and the blood soaked in down his clothes. Charley walked in flat-footed, not seeking to dodge or block Harold’s weak punches. Charley felt his knuckles smashing against skin and bone and eye, and running with blood, half-delirious with pleasure, as Harold reeled and fell into the cruel, unpitying fists. Even the knuckles on his hands, and the tendons in Charley’s fists, carrying the shock of the battle up to his shoulders, seemed to enjoy the pitiless administration of punishment.

From time to time Harold grunted, when Charley took time off from hitting him in the head to hit him, hooking upward from his ankles, in the belly. Except for that, the battle was conducted in complete quiet. The eight friends of Charley watched soberly, professionally, making no comment, finally watching Harold sink to the ground, not unconscious, but too exhausted to move a finger, and lie, spread out, his bloody face pressed harshly, but gratefully, into the dust and rubble of the vacant lot.

Charley stood over the fallen enemy, breathing heavily, his fists tingling joyfully, happy to see the weak, hated, frail figure face down and helpless on the ground, sorry that the pleasure of beating that figure was over. He watched in silence for a minute until Harold moved.

“All right,” Harold said, his face still in the dirt. “That’s enough.” He lifted his head, slowly sat up, then, with a trembling hand, pulled himself to his feet. He wavered, his arms out from his sides and shaking uncontrollably, but he held his feet. “May I have my glasses?” he asked.

Silently, Sam Rosenberg, Charley’s lieutenant, gave Harold his glasses. Harold fumblingly, with shaking hands, put them on. Charley watched him, the incongruously undamaged glasses on the damaged face. Suddenly Charley realized that he was crying. He, Charley Lynch, victor in fifty more desperate battles, who had shed no tear since the time he was spanked at the age of four, was weeping uncontrollably, his body shaken with sobs, his eyes hot and smarting. As he wept, he realized that he had been sobbing all through the fight, from the first right-hand to the eye until the final sinking, face-first, of the enemy into the dirt. Charley looked at Harold, eye closed, nose swollen and to one side, hair sweated and muddy, mouth all gore and mud, but the face, the spirit behind it, calm, unmoved. Harold wasn’t crying then, Charley knew, as he sobbed bitterly, and he wouldn’t cry later, and nothing he, Charley Lynch, could ever do would make him cry.