For once she was quiet. She stood looking at me.
“You had no compassion, Ma,” I said. “I looked for compassion for a long time but it was never there. Then I started to look for it elsewhere. From toteboards and people like the Quatorze.”
She shook her head. “It’s too late,” she said.
“I know,” I said. “I know it’s too late.”
I stared at her. These people aren’t clowns in rubber suits, I thought, the plaid jackets and the language does not make them unwilling to kill. It is that kind of a world. It is a killing world. Underneath the rubber masks and noses it’s murder.
My mother said, “I’ll never give you the money. I’d rather die than give you the money. It’s as simple as that.”
“I know,” I said. “I know. I know how you feel about money. You taught me the importance of it and that it was worth anything to try and get it. Anything except feeling, that is.” My palms were sweating slightly. Her eyes fixed on me.
It’s six to five, I thought. Six to five and pick ’em, vigorish either way which means that it’s a ten percent cut off the top or maybe five because I am a great customer but still a losing proposition booked up all the way. Six to five. Six to five.
“You won’t do it,” she said. “You won’t do it.”
“Don’t bet on it, Ma,” I said quietly. “I might book it myself.”
And then for a long time while I thought about a little of this and a lot of that, we stood there in the house built over the swamp on the far western tip of the ruined state of New Jersey and we looked at each other.
The Right Circumstances
by Robert Edward Eckels
Fraser sat at the curve of the bar, watching the small comedy unfolding on the other side of the room. A woman had come in to sit alone at one of the tables clustered across from the bar and almost immediately afterwards a short man with a knobby, weak-chinned face and maybe one drink too many under his belt had decided to move in.
What intrigued Fraser was the woman herself. She wasn’t the kind you’d normally expect to find in a bar. Not that she wasn’t attractive enough. She was, in a late-thirtyish, early-fortyish kind of way. It was mainly that there was nothing flashy or smart about her. She was, Fraser decided, a lady, in the old-fashioned sense of the word. A little severe about the mouth maybe, but that might just be a reaction to the creep trying to pick her up. She was trying very hard to brush him off without creating a scene and not having very much luck.
Under the right circumstances, Fraser was willing to bet, her mouth might not be very severe at all. The trick would be finding the right circumstances.
He was still speculating on that when the waitress appeared at his elbow.
“Your table is ready in the dining room, Mr. Fraser,” she said.
Fraser hesitated, looked back at the woman and her unwanted suitor, then on impulse slipped the waitress a folded bill and slid off his stool. “Tell me again in five minutes,” he said and went over to tap the small man on the shoulder. “Excuse me,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “but if you don’t mind I’d like to sit with my wife.”
The look of sudden irritation on the small man’s face died as swiftly as it had come. His eyes slid away from Fraser’s. “Sorry,” he stammered. He looked back at the woman, then as quickly away again. “Uh — you know — sorry.” He almost upset a chair at the next table in his haste to escape.
Fraser laughed and sat down across from the woman. “I hope you didn’t mind,” he said, “but I’ve always admired that line and this is the first time I’ve ever had a chance to use it. Frankly, the opportunity was just too good to pass up.”
The woman smiled faintly. “It was effective anyway,” she said.
“Oh, of course,” Fraser said. “It had to be. It’s how Clark Gable rescued Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night, and the movie won an Academy Award. Are you an old movie buff?”
The woman shook her head. “No.”
“Neither am I, really,” Fraser said. “I just watch ’em on late television. Which goes to prove, I guess, that even insomnia can pay off.” He leaned back and crossed his legs. “But if we’re going to be married, we at least ought to know each other. I’m Sam Fraser.”
“Helen Leonard.”
“Pleased to know you, Helen Leonard,” Sam said. He raised his glass in salute, then looked up as the waitress approached again.
“Your table’s ready, Mr. Fraser,” she said. The bill Sam had given her had been a five and she kept her face carefully straight.
Sam nodded but made no effort to rise. He looked thoughtfully over at the bar, where the small man had found a seat.
Helen smiled wryly. “It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t think he’ll be back. Not after what happened.”
Sam shook his head. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said. “But, look, you’re waiting for dinner too, aren’t you? Why not join me?”
Helen smiled faintly and shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said.
“Why not? You’re not meeting anyone, are you?”
“No.”
“Then two’s better company than one any day. Besides—” he held up a warning finger — “it could be a lot worse. In the movie, Claudette ended up having to share a motel room with Clark. And if you don’t think that was a big deal back in the thirties, think again.” He snapped his fingers. “I know. Clark solved that by hanging a blanket between them. We can use our dinner napkins. They’re very large here. And I promise to let you pay for your own dinner if you insist.”
He had her laughing now. “When you put it that way,” she said, “how can I refuse?”
As he followed her to the dining room, Sam deliberately caught the small man’s eye. The man looked away.
Sam grinned to himself.
Helen sat quietly at first, busying herself with the menu and the trivia of ordering, afraid of the awkward silences that could grow up between two strangers thrown together — afraid too of what she felt were her own inadequacies in coping with the situation. Sam, however, was an infectious extrovert, with a well-developed knack for sensing when a conversational subject needed to be switched and a wide range of topics to turn to. By the end of the meal Helen found herself laughing and chatting as if they were better-than-average old friends.
When the check came, Sam paid it without comment. It seemed natural, and Helen didn’t object. Afterwards, he walked her outside, waited while the attendant brought her car, then escorted her around to the driver’s side, kissing her lightly on the cheek as they said goodbye.
“Good night, Helen,” he said. “It was a short marriage — but a happy one.” Then he stepped back and watched her drive off.
When she got home, Helen sat in front of her mirror for a long time, trying to sort out her emotions. She’d acted very much on impulse in going out alone tonight. It was something she rarely did. But Frank was on the road. A salesman’s wife was supposed to get used to that, and she supposed she had, or she wouldn’t have stayed his wife this long. But now the children had gone — Steve to college downstate, Beth to Atlanta with her new husband — and the walls had suddenly seemed to press in on her. And she had known that unless she got away from them — somehow — they would continue to press in until they literally drove her mad.
And what had been the result of her desperate venture? She smiled wryly at her reflection in the mirror. She’d been picked up, and, to top it off, in a bar of all places. How Frank would laugh at that.