In the morning Connie and her son got breakfast in the dorm cafeteria,
the women gathering around to see a child and touch him and marvel
at him spooning oatmeal into his mouth with a big spoon. The desk
found out where Bunce was, a house in Henryville, not far they said,
and the shop roster said he was on the Swing Shift, so he might be
there now.
Now.
The address they gave her didn’t seem even to look like one—8–19-
N? What did it mean? But they pointed her the way and she set out into
the little town, vanishing and gray in the morning light, down the wide
street (wasn’t it too wide, and the houses too low, she thought for a
minute it wasn’t real, like those fake towns you heard were built above
factories to hide them from bombers). Adolph walked a little, then had
to be picked up and carried. Day came on, sweet and cool, the gray
burned off, the town was real, people came out of some houses and
waved to her and smiled. Each of the houses bore a number like the
one written on her paper. At last she came upon a woman watering a
window box of geraniums with a coffeepot and hailed her.
“Howdy,” the woman answered. Connie didn’t think people who
weren’t in the movies or in radio comedies really said Howdy, but the
woman seemed to mean it. She had a huge paper or silk geranium, or
maybe it was a rose, in her curled hair.
“Oh sure,” she said when Connie showed her paper. “That’s number
eight on block nineteen of N Street. This-here’s J Street, block fifteen,
so y’all’s got four blocks to go down and K, L, M, to go over, left. All
right?”
“Yes, all right, thanks.” They regarded each other for a moment.
“Pretty flowers.”
248 / J O H N C R O W L E Y
The woman touched the one in her hair, and turned back to her
watering. For some reason Connie found her unsettling, her good
cheer, her strange speech, her being at home here. She kept on, feeling
excluded. When she approached the right block, Adolph had grown
insupportably heavy, like baby Jesus in the Saint Christopher story,
and her armpits were damp. That would be it. No it wasn’t: a small
plump woman, a bottle blonde, just then came out of it, turned to wave
good-bye to someone inside, then closed the door behind her and set
out, smiling and pulling straight her girdle. Was it across the street?
Odd numbers on one side, even on the other. The last house was 9. His
was 8. Connie went on to the next block. Some blocks had no number
or letter signs, never put up or fallen off.
“Mommy.”
“Yes, bunny.”
“Mommy I’m hot.”
“Okay, hon.”
She turned back. The houses were so identical. It must be that one,
but wasn’t that the one the blond woman had come out of? Now she
wasn’t sure. But it had to be it. She went up the path, just a couple of
feet, and knocked at the door, thinking nothing now but that she wanted
to be somewhere inside where she could put Adolph down, and almost
instantly, as though he’d been standing just behind it, Bunce opened it.
“Hello,” she said.
He said nothing. He was in his underwear, a singlet and wrinkled
shorts. Just seeing him a torrent of warm gratitude filled her, her son
grew lighter, she knew she’d done the right thing, it’d been hard and
she’d never been sure and now she was. “Here’s Adolph,” she said.
“Connie, what the hell.” He looked from her to his son as though
trying to remember them and then suddenly remembering. A great grin
broke over his face, he took the boy from her and lifted him high.
Adolph squealed in delight at Bunce’s delight and at the heave Bunce
had given him, but looked away, toward nothing or for something. His
father lifting him in his big hands, his hands.
“I didn’t write to tell you,” she said. “I thought you’d tell me not to come.”
There was almost nothing in the house, an unmade bed, a kitchen
F O U R F R E E D O M S / 249
table and chairs, another smaller bare bed in another room; a new
refrigerator; a big bamboo chair, with a floor lamp beside it; and some
kind of box or crate with rope handles used for a table, covered with
stuff, an apple core, a root beer bottle, papers and comic books. Bunce
liked comic books.
“Why would I tell you not to come?” He wasn’t looking at her but
at Adolph, who was trying to balance standing on Bunce’s thighs where
he sat in the bamboo chair. Their eyes were locked together, as though
a current passed between them. “Who wouldn’t want a visit from his
wife? His son?”
Connie sat on a straight-backed kitchen chair. She hadn’t taken her
coat off. “Well, I guess,” she said. “Sure.”
“Daddy,” said Bunce. “Daddy. Say Daddy.”
Adolph laughed in that funny way he had, as though he didn’t actu-
ally believe you, but he said nothing.
“So how,” Bunce said. “How’d you, I mean, the train and all. I
mean I’ve sent you what I could.”
“I bought the tickets. One way.”
Bunce still smiling turned to her. “With what?”
“I had the money.” This had gone a way she’d known she’d have to
go, but faster than she’d been ready for. “Well,” she said again. “You
won’t believe it. I got a job.”
Now Bunce pulled Adolph’s exploring hands away from his face. “A
job? Connie.”
“You know everybody’s working now. I thought I could help.”
“Did you ask me whether I thought you ought to get a job? Did you
even tell me you had this in mind?”
He’d put Adolph down and stood, looming over her a little. She
knew better than to answer right off, that these weren’t actual ques-
tions but statements to be listened to without expression.
“Jesus, Connie. What the hell.”
“Bunce,” she cautioned him in a whisper, pointing to Adolph. He
turned away from both of them and seemed suddenly to realize he
wasn’t dressed. He went into the bedroom and from the floor picked
up a pair of trousers and began furiously pulling them on. Why was
this house such a mess? He hated mess.
“So where was this job?” he said. “By the way.”
250 / J O H N C R O W L E Y
“Well that’s the crazy part,” Connie said, willing a big smile. “It
was at the Bull plant. That’s where I was sent. How do you like that.”
So that was said, and he didn’t blow up, just went into the bath-
room and stood for a minute looking in the little mirror over the sink,
then turned on both faucets, cupped his hands, splashed water on his
face and neck, and took a towel from a hook to rub himself. Then he
stood looking into the mirror a long time.
“You know you made a liar out of me, Connie?” he said.
“What?” she said, feeling a stab of panic.
“Maybe a criminal too,” he said, still looking only in the mirror. “My
draft registration. It says I do necessary war work, and that I’m the sole
support of my family.” He turned to her at last. “You think of that?”
“Well you could have maybe changed it,” she said softly.
“Sure. And lost my deferment maybe too,” he said. He tossed away
the towel. “Okay. You’re gonna quit.”
“I don’t need to quit,” she said. “That’s the next crazy part. They
went out of business.”
“What?”
“The whole plant. There were marshals and everything. They threw
us all out.”
“What the heck. Where was the union? They can’t do that.”
Connie explained what she’d seen, what she knew, what the papers