“Then he left.”
“Then he left,” said Miss Ball. “But he came back.”
“Really?” Herbie steadied himself for another blast. He was getting worried.
“He left in the morning. In the night he came back. He went to church and work in between.”
“Church. Which church?”
“The stupid Irish church, that’s which church. He was what you might call a Catholic. He had to go to church.”
“I thought they just had to go on Sunday.”
“They don’t.”
“That’s not what I thought.”
“Not on Lent they don’t.”
“But Lent is only a month or two in the winter, isn’t it?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Miss Ball. “It was always Lent in our house. Lent and hate.”
“Maybe marriages can be based on hate instead of love,” Herbie said.
“Ours was. The girls down at the D.A.R. said to stay away from Catholics if you want to stay tolerant. But I wouldn’t listen. Sure, he wasn’t all bad — he used to pick up stray cats and stuff. The girls said that’s a sign of loneliness. He was probably lonely.”
“It was his way,” said Herbie. He had been waiting for a good chance to say it.
“Maybe that’s it. He was good about cats. And I really couldn’t divorce him for taking the coffeemaker apart. You don’t walk into a court and say, I want a divorce — my husband takes the coffeepot apart before church every morning. It doesn’t sound right. It wouldn’t even sound right in a movie if Ava Gardner said it. Besides, who else is there? There aren’t that many people in the world that you can just start tossing them away left and right just because they have a certain way about them. That’s what love is — sticking with the guy even though he has creepy habits. It’s learning to love the creepy habits so you can sleep in the same bed without killing the sonofabitch.”
“I thought I’d hate this job at Kant-Brake, but now I like it.”
Miss Ball turned all her face on Herbie. “Of course you’ll like it. It’ll be fun. You’ll learn to get the hang of it. Sure, you hated it at first, but every dog has his day. That’s part of living.”
“My mother needs the money. She’s getting along, getting old.”
“I’m getting along myself,” said Miss Ball.
“She’s all alone now,” said Herbie. “My father’s gone. It’s the least I can do.”
“I could have been in the movies. Don’t think I didn’t have lots of chances. But I sacrificed and here I am.”
“My mother just can’t stop eating because my father died. Life goes on. You’ve got to keep eating no matter what happens.”
“My husband. He kept me going, I guess.”
“If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be here.” Herbie thought for a moment. “Who knows where I’d be? Maybe in the real army.”
“He could laugh. You should have heard him laugh,” said Miss Ball. “Like a barrel of monkeys.”
“My mother laughs all the time. She laughs at everything.”
“He taught me how to laugh, the old fool.”
“People don’t laugh enough these days. It’s good medicine,” said Herbie. “Isn’t it? I mean, if you don’t laugh you’ll go crazy.”
“I still haven’t forgotten how.”
“Neither have I. Neither has my mother.”
“You’ve got to learn to laugh,” said Miss Ball. And to prove it she emitted a little bark, learned undoubtedly from the husband who rose so early in the morning. She laughed wildly, yelping, looking around the room, her eyes darting from object to object, her laughter growing with each object. It was not continuous, but a series of yelps, wet boffoes and barks. She showed no signs of tiring.
Herbie joined her, slowly at first. Then it was a duet.
7
“You gotta know which side of the bed your brother’s on,” Mr. Gibbon shouted to Herbie over the roar of the machines. But Herbie did not hear. No one heard anyone else at Kant-Brake. That did not stop the employees from talking. It encouraged them. There were no disagreements, no arguments, no harsh words, and still everyone talked nearly all the time. None of that impatient waiting until the other person finished to add your two cents’ worth. And since most of the employees had been through many campaigns there were millions of little stories to tell. Happily, each man got a chance to tell them. So when Mr. Gibbon offered his homily to Herbie, Herbie answered by saying that his tooth hurt. And then Mr. Gibbon said that he liked spunky women and asked Herbie if his mother was spunky.
At noon sharp the machines were shut off. The scream of voices persisted for a few moments after the machines were silenced, then, when everyone heard his own voice, the sounds quickly hushed, as if the human voice were something to be avoided.
Mr. Gibbon came over to Herbie and pointed to a bench. They sat on the bench and opened their paper lunch-bags (there was a mess hall, but Mr. Gibbon had said that he could never stand mess halls, even though he was once a cook and could make enough cabbage for, let’s face it, an army). They took out their sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and began whispering. Everyone else at Kant-Brake was whispering as well. They always whispered at lunch hour. Mr. Gibbon asked Herbie about his family. They continued their lunch, whispering between bites.
Herbie said his mother was his family.
“No kin?”
“Nope.”
“Friends of the family?”
“Couple.”
“No brothers?”
“Uh-unh.”
“Aunts?”
“No kin. None.”
“Girlfriends, though.”
“Used to.”
“’Smatter now?”
“Nothing.”
“Get one.”
“Got one.”
“What’s your mother like?”
“Okay. Still alive. Pretty strong woman.”
“Spunky?”
“You might say so.”
“Your old man’s. . ah. .”
“Dead.”
“Passed away, huh?”
“That’s what the man said.”
“What man? You pullin’ my leg? You shouldn’t fool with things like that.”
“Things like what?”
“Like saying your old man’s dead.”
“My old man’s dead. Dead and [bite] gone [swallow].”
“Stop that.”
“Tell him that.”
“Wait’ll you get my age.”
“I’m waiting.”
“You’ll see.”
“Sure.”
“It’s a crime to talk about your old man like that. You should never fool with things like that. They should horsewhip everyone under a certain age once a week.”
“Who should?”
“The government should.”
“Who’s gonna buy the whips? Who’s gonna do the whipping?”
“Simple. The police. They should do it in public.”
“They should kill old men and old ladies. How’d you like that?”
“Don’t like it.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
“Your poor mother. I feel for her, I really do.”
“I’m the one that’s supporting her.”
“That’s the least you can do. The very least.”
“She’s not so poor. She gets enough to eat.”
“So you get enough to eat and you’re not poor. You got a lot to learn about people, sonny.”
“You got a lot to learn about my mother.”
“Mothers got hearts. Hearts got to be fed, too.”
“With love. Ha-ha.”
“With love.”
“I can’t swallow that.”
“Food isn’t enough. You’ll learn.”
“Don’t tell me about my own mother, okay? I like her a lot. Maybe more than your mother.”