“What is your wife doing, now that you’re in jail?” Feldman, looking up from the picture, asked Coney.
“Tricks,” Coney said gloomily.
“Ah, a magician.” (I’ll bet, he thought, seeing the girl’s grim mouth and long nails. He suspected palmed hatpins, bold kicks to the groin, all the rough whore’s holds. He thought of Lilly, who had no trade and knew no tricks and couldn’t take a punch. He thought of Lilly’s dull loneliness.)
“How does your family make out?” he asked Maze, in the cell across from his.
“On relief,” Maze said. “On A.D.C On Community Chest.”
“I’m a very big taxpayer in this state,” Feldman said thoughtfully.
He saw a picture of a big boy in one of those double strollers for twins.
“My kid is sick,” Butt said, “he needs an operation on his back. He can’t move his legs, and the nurse at the clinic says he has to get fresh air so he’ll be strong enough if we ever get the money for his operation. We live on the third floor, and my wife has to carry him up the stairs. She ain’t strong and he weighs a hundred pounds and we have to move into a building which has an elevator if he’s ever to get enough fresh air and sunshine. We ain’t got the rent for that kind of building. They’re asking a hundred dollars. She’s moved his bed next to the window, but the night air gives him a sore throat.”
“We need a wagon,” Clock said. “It’ll be spring and the phone books come out, and my wife can deliver them but we don’t have a wagon. She used to get five cents a book, but in the last election the townships all merged and the book is much thicker. They’d give her a dime if she just had a wagon. The wagon she used was stolen last year, but it wasn’t no good for it was too small. She needs a new big one — an American Cart. They’re twenty-eight bucks, and she ain’t got the dough. If she just had the wagon she was promised the job.”
“I’ve—” Feldman said.
“Flo doesn’t drive,” McAlperin said. “She never learned how and the car’s up on blocks. There’s no one to teach her, and lessons are high. She ain’t got the nerve, to tell you the truth. Her first husband died — he was creamed by a truck. But if she could drive she could get a good job. Selling cosmetics, or maybe those books. You make a commission, they pay very well. They’re crying for help, and Flo would be good. People all like her, she knows how to talk. Presentable too, attractive and neat. Now she’s a waitress, but that’s not for her. If she just learned to drive she’d be better off. The car could come down. It’s not good for a car to be idle like that. I don’t like the idea of her being out late, waiting on tables and talking to men. You know how men are, what they want from a girl. If she’d just learn to drive she could sell door to door, talking with housewives and doing some good. Getting those books into their homes. If she’d just learn to drive.”
“I’ve got—” Feldman said.
“It’s like this,” Munce said, “my wife saw this ad on the side of a bus. For finishing high school on home-study plan. A place in Chicago, and in her spare time she does all the lessons; they come through the mail. But she can’t buy the books that they want her to read — biology, English, big books and dear. What makes it so bad is she can’t get a card, or she’d go to the library and take them all out. But I’ve got a record, and that nixes the deal. Of course she could read them right there at the desk; they’d let her do that, but she’d have to stand up. She might use her sister’s, but that girl’s a bitch. They ain’t spoke for years, and my wife is too proud. If they only made up she could borrow the card and take out the books and study at home and get a diploma and then a good job.”
“I’ve got—” Feldman said.
“My daughter’s fifteen,” Case said, “and don’t know I’m here. We told her a lie to save her the shame. She just had turned six when they took me to jail. I made an arrangement with an old friend of mine, a guy off in Europe — Fred Bolton’s his name. Fred was a pal that I knew from the block. Smart as a whip, we knew he’d go far. A scholar, you know, but a regular guy. He won all the prizes and went off to Yale, where they paid his tuition and gave him free board. He got his degree and then left the States. He writes to my daughter and signs himself me. For years Fred has done this — a letter a month and often a gift. Once perfume from Paris and leather from Spain. She thinks we’re divorced, but she’s proud of her dad. But Fred has sclerosis and now he may die. There’s one chance in a million — you see, they’re not sure. It might just be a nerve. Fred always was jumpy, even in school. So they’ve taken a test and we’re waiting to hear. They’ve sent it to Brocher, a big man in the field. But Brocher’s in Russia, he defected last year. And Fred writes these books that the Communists hate. They might want him to die — then what will I do? Who’ll write my daughter? Who’ll save her the shame? How can we tell her I’m supposed to be dead? A girl needs a father — she’s only fifteen, and though she don’t see me it keeps up her heart. If only they’ll let Brocher look at the tests — if only they’ll tell him, okay, go ahead. Then if only the tests turn out to be good and they locate the nerve that’s bothering Fred, they can probably treat it, and in time he’ll get well — then maybe in time he can write her again.”
“I’ve got—” Feldman said.
“And send her those gifts, those prizes she loves—”
“I’ve got—” Feldman said, “the picture.”
“They say you listen,” a convict said to Feldman one evening, moving beside him.
Feldman had another image of the grapevine, pendent with talk, with talk about talk. “I’ve heard a few,” he said noncommittally, not looking up.
“I want to tell,” the convict said.
They were just outside the shower stalls, sitting on the benches that ran along the walls of what might have been a locker room if this had not been a penitentiary. Feldman was undressing. The room was damp, the stone floors clammy, mucoid. He remembered his own carpeted bathroom, the cut-glass decanters with their bright sourballs of bubble bath, and he felt like crying. (It was the toilet he missed most. He thought of his golden hamper. It was really beautiful, a piece of furniture practically. He thought of it stuffed with white shirts hardly soiled — he loved the generous reckless act of throwing shirts into the dirty clothes. The memory of his shower almost brought tears to his eyes. There were long rubber treads built right into the smooth tile floor of the shower stall. One wall was clear glass, much sexier than the milky glass of your ordinary shower. There were recesses along another wall for shampoos, soaps, rinses, and there were roll-out men’s and ladies’ razors on nylon cords that worked on the principle of a window shade. There were marvelous flexible tubes that pulled out of the wall, and cunning, splendid brushes and a nozzle complicated and delicate as something in a Roman fountain. The dancing waters, Feldman thought.)