“Excuse us,” the Bubbas said in unison, having been raised to be polite.
“Want to talk to you, Herndon,” I said sternly.
The big man’s good-living face went sour for a second as he recognized me. “Oh, jeez. Okay. I’ll see you in the hall there in a second, kid.”
“Make it quick,” I said threateningly, and pulled the door shut. “Hey, Bubba, trot on out there on Yosemite and make sure our little buddy doesn’t slip out the window, okay?” One of them took off, clomping heavily down the stairs.
I lighted a Camel and smoked nervously. After a moment the apartment door opened and Jimmy Herndon came out, zipping up his pants. He grinned at me. “You’re Benjy, right?”
“Ben. Ben Perkins. And you know why I’m here, so let’s get on with it.”
“Get on with what?” he asked pleasantly. His eyes clicked once to Bubba and then back to me, undisturbed.
“You and Libby. I want to hear you say that it’s over.”
“Well, okay. It’s over. How’s that, Benjy?”
His grin had not wavered. I dropped my cigarette to the floor and slowly crushed it out, feeling my heart pound and fists knot. “You smart-mouthin’ me?”
He showed me palms. “No,” he said deliberately. “Now don’t get riled. I meant what I said. Libby and I are all through.”
I loosened my hands marginally. “You give me your word on that?”
“Absolutely. Look, Ben — you don’t mind if I call you Ben, do you?” He hooked a hand over my shoulder and led me slowly up the hall. “I like Libby. I really do. But she really is too young for me. I’m breaking it off. I’d already planned to, even before today.”
“I see.”
Herndon looked me straight in the eye. “As it happens, I’m leaving town for good. Tonight. So I’ll be out of the picture. Fair enough?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I gestured to Bubba.
“Don’t disappoint me, now,” I warned Herndon. “Don’t worry, Benjy. I won’t.”
The rain was dumping in buckets the next afternoon as I sloshed the Ford up Lahser on my way home from work. I’d put in ten hours at the grocery and I was whipped, grimy, and grumpy. My boss, whom I’d unwisely nicknamed Hitler, had been giving me the crappiest jobs in the place ever since I told him I was going to work at Ford’s. Plus I was jumpy, wondering what kind of explosion waited for me at home. It had been twenty-four hours since my talk with Jimmy Herndon, more than enough time for Libby to find out that he was gone.
A familiar figure waved an umbrella to me from under the awning of Jim’s Sweet Shop. I sloshed the Ford to the curb as my mother ran to the car, opened the door and piled in, dragging her umbrella behind her. “Lord have mercy, it’s enough to strangle frogs! Thank you, Benjy.”
“No problem, Ma.” I wheeled the Ford away from the curb. “So, how’s things around the house?”
“Things?” she asked absently as she glanced inside her prescription bag. Then she arched a brow. “Oh. Things. Well, son, I reckon things are just fine.”
“In the baby sister department?” I asked carefully. “What’s she been up to?”
“Nothing special. Came straight home from school, like yesterday. Studied awhile. Then went out with her girlfriends. There’s a new movie at the Red-ford over there, something with Dick Clark.” She must have taken my silence for skepticism, because she added, “I know that’s where Libby went. I walked up here with her and her friends, since it was right on the way to Kinsel’s for your daddy’s prescription.”
“Well, good,” I said uneasily, swinging right onto Bennett.
“I don’t know what you did, son, but whatever it was, it seems to’ve worked. I’m much obliged.” She looked at me and wrinkled her nose. “Heavens mercy, what is that stench on you, Benjamin?”
“Hot sauce. Had to clean up a busted case of it.”
She had her eagle eye on. “And those shoes! Why in the world did you wear those sorry old shoes to work?”
“Couldn’t find my other ones. Looked everywhere.”
She snorted. “You’re too young to be going senile. First your pants, now your shoes.”
“Sorry, Ma.” I slowed down for our driveway. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
She smiled at me. “I know. It was unfair of me, imposing on you the way I did. But I’m not sorry. You fixed it and it’s over and I’m grateful, Benjy. Right grateful.”
I wished I could be as positive as she.
But everything stayed calm. At least as calm as it ever was around our house. Daddy came home mean as a snake from a run-in with his boss at the casket company, and had another tantrum when the news came over that Kennedy had, as expected, been nominated. Libby returned from her movie and ate dinner with the family. Then she spent the evening curled up on the living room couch, industriously studying her English. She was in a fine mood. I began to think that maybe Ma was right. Maybe the Herndon episode was over. Maybe Libby would pass her remedial courses and go on to tenth grade in the fall and life would return to whatever passed for normal around our place.
I wanted to believe it. I had my own life to live, and only a few days left before hitting the line at Ford’s. I wanted to cruise in my Deluxe Tudor, maybe turtle-race down Woodward Avenue, four cars abreast doing ten miles per hour; gobble Big Chief burgers at the Totem Pole, catch the Tigers playing the Yankees at Briggs Stadium this weekend, and, of course, have at least one more session guzzling Stroh’s tall boys with Eddie and the Bubbas, assuming I could find a supplier.
But in the end I had to make sure.
I stood before the apartment door and took a deep breath as the Wesson Apartments breathed silently around me.
For the dozenth time since getting up that Thursday morning I wondered if I was being extra dumb, coming down here alone. But, I reminded myself, Herndon didn’t seem all that tough. Big guy, for sure, with some experience on him, but mostly mouth. All lard and no hard, as my daddy would have said. I wouldn’t need the Bubbas to handle him. If in fact he was still here.
I knocked on the door. After a moment it eased back, held cautiously by the dark-haired woman I’d seen Herndon with the last time. She wore a mint Grecian-sleeve dress with a polka dot sash around her slender waist. Her hair was pixie short and so was she: shapely but slight with the wiry build of a dancer. “You,” she greeted me.
I wanted to tell her she looked better with clothes on, but caught myself in time. Not very nice, and untrue, besides. “Me,” I answered, grinning. “Where’s Herndon at?”
“Not here. Who cares where?” She smiled crookedly. “I sure as the dickens don’t. I threw him out.” She stepped into the hallway and pulled the door to. At my expression her face hardened and she pushed the door back open. “You want to search the place? Go ahead!”
“If I wanted to, babygal, I would.” The line sounded better in my head than it did out loud. “What’d Herndon do, find somewhere else to live?”
“Somewhere else?” she mimicked sourly. “He never lived here. Hung around some, you know? But he never spent the night. We had some laughs, okay? But nothing big-time.”
“Seen him lately?”
“You deaf or something? I threw him out, I toldja.” As she looked at me, I saw that her eyes, outlined in black, were the exact color of her dress. “The other day when you were here, I listened through the door. That’s how I found out about him and your sister. That tore it. I never planned to marry the bum, but I wasn’t going to be part of any harem, either.”