He led the way to the cold counter and dug out a frosted bottle, uncapped it, and reached for another. “Guess I’ll have one too.”
Joey-boy leaned against the lighted glass and poured down half the bottle before he lowered it. “Hey!” he said. “Somebody’s lost Fort Knox.” He picked up the billfold.
“That’s a little gift from the B. B. D. and D. drummer. He’s trying to hustle some of our business.”
“Well, he ain’t hustling peanuts. This here’s quality, son. Got your initials on it, too, in gold.”
“It has?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“He just left a minute ago.”
Joey flipped open the folded leather and rustled the clear plastic identification envelopes. “You better start joining something,” he said. He opened the back. “Now here’s what I call real thoughtful.” Between first and second fingers he extracted a new twenty-dollar bill. “I knew they were moving in but didn’t know with tanks. That’s a remembrance worth remembering.”
“Was that in there?”
“You think I planted it?”
“Joey, I want to talk to you. The guy offered me five per cent of any business I threw their way.”
“Well, bully-bully! Prosperity at last. And it wasn’t no idle promise. You should set up the Cokes. This is your day.”
“You don’t mean I should take it—”
“Why not, if they don’t add it on the cost? Who loses?”
“He said I shouldn’t tell Marullo or he’d think I was getting more.”
“He would. What’s the matter with you, Hawley? You nuts? I guess it’s that light. You look green. Do I look green? You weren’t thinking of turning it down?”
“I had trouble enough not kicking him in the ass.”
“Oh! It’s like that—you and the dinosaurs.”
“He said everybody does it.”
“Not everybody can get it. You’re just one of the lucky ones.”
“It’s not honest.”
“How not? Who gets hurt? Is it against the law?”
“You mean you’d take it?”
“Take it—I’d sit up and beg for it. In my business they got all the loopholes closed. Practically everything you can do in a bank is against the law—unless you’re president. I don’t get you. What are you hoggle-boggling about? If you were taking it away from Alfio lad, I’d say it wasn’t quite straight—but you’re not. You do them a favor, they do you a favor—a nice crisp green favor. Don’t be crazy. You’ve got a wife and kids to think of. Raising kids ain’t going to get any cheaper.”
“I wish you’d go away now.”
Joey Morphy put his unemptied bottle down hard on the counter. “Mr. Hawley—no, Mr. Ethan Allen Hawley,” he said coldly, “if you think I would do anything dishonest or suggest that you do—why you can go and screw yourself.”
Joey stalked toward the storeroom.
“I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean it. Honest to God I didn’t, Joey. I just had a couple of shocks today and besides—this is a dreadful holiday—dreadful.”
Morphy paused. “How do you mean? Oh! yes, I know. Yes, I do know. You believe I know?”
“And every year, ever since I was a kid, only it gets worse because—maybe because I know more what it means, I hear those lonely ‘lama sabach thani’[11] words.”
“I do know, Ethan, I do. It’s nearly over—nearly over now, Ethan. Just forget I stomped out, will you?”
And the iron firebell clanged—one single stroke.
“It’s over now,” said Joey-boy. “It’s all over—for a year.” He drifted quietly out through the storeroom and eased the alley door shut.
Ethan raised the shades and opened the store again, but there wasn’t much trade—a few bottle-of-milk and loaf-of-bread kids, a small lamb chop and can of peas for Miss Borcher for her hot-plate supper. People were just not moving about in the street. During the half-hour before six o’clock, while Ethan was getting things ready to close up, not a soul came in. And he locked up and started away before he remembered the groceries for home—had to go back and assemble them in two big bags and lock up over again. He had wanted to walk down to the bayside and watch the gray waves among the pilings of the dock and smell the sea water and speak to a seagull standing beak into the wind on a mooring float. He remembered a lady-poem written long ago by someone whipped to frenzy by the gliding spiral of a gull’s flight. The poem began: “Oh! happy fowl— what thrills thee so?” And the lady poet had never found out, probably didn’t want to know.
The heavy bags of groceries for the holidays discouraged the walk. Ethan moved wearily across the High Street and took his way slowly along Elm toward the old Hawley house.
Chapter two
Mary came from the stove and took one of the big grocery bags from him.
“I’ve got so much to tell you. Can’t wait.”
He kissed her and she felt the texture of his lips. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Little tired.”
“But you were closed three hours.”
“Plenty to do.”
“I hope you aren’t gloomy.”
“It’s a gloomy day.”
“It’s been a wonderful day. Wait till you hear.”
“Where are the kids?”
“Upstairs with the radio. They’ve got something to tell you too.”
“Trouble?”
“Now why do you say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t feel well.”
“Damn it, I do too.”
“With all the lovely things—I’ll wait till after dinner for our part. Are you going to be surprised.”
Allen and Mary Ellen boiled down the stairs and into the kitchen. “He’s home,” they said.
“Pop, you got Peeks in the store?”
“You mean that cereal, sure, Allen.”
“I wish you’d bring some. It’s the one with a mouse mask on the box that you cut out.”
“Aren’t you a little old for a mouse mask?”
Ellen said, “You send the box top and ten cents and you get a ventriloquism thing and instructions. We just heard it on the radio.”
Mary said, “Tell your father what you want to do.”
“Well, we’re going to enter the National I Love America Contest. First prize is go to Washington, meet the President—with parents—lots of other prizes.”
“Fine,” said Ethan. “What is it? What do you have to do?”
“Hearst papers,”[12] Ellen cried. “All over the country. You just write an essay why you love America. All the winners get to go on television.”
“It’s the grapes,” said Allen. “How about going to Washington, hotel, shows, meet the President, the works. How’s that for the grapes?”
“How about your schoolwork?”
“It’s this summer. They announce the winners Fourth of July.”
“Well, that might be all right. Do you really love America or do you love prizes?”
“Now, Father,” said Mary, “don’t go spoiling it for them.”
“I just wanted to separate the cereal from the mouse mask. They get all mixed up.”
“Pop, where would you say we could look it up?”
“Look it up?”
“Sure, like what some other guys said—”
“Your great-grandfather had some pretty fine books. They’re in the attic.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, like Lincoln’s speeches and Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. You might take a look at Thoreau or Walt Whitman or Emerson—Mark Twain too. They’re all up there in the attic.”
“Did you read them, Pop?”
“He was my grandfather. He used to read them to me sometimes.”
“Maybe you could help us with the essays.”
11
lama sabach thani: Matthew 27:46: “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
12
Hearst papers: William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) took over the