Some Came Running (162 page)

“Ever since you found out you had diabetes,” Dave said.

“All right. Okay,” ’Bama said. “And that’s part of it, too. But why do we try to hang onto something that is changed, and don’t mean anything anymore. Let’s give her the old coup de grâce; and be done with it. Hunh? What do you say?”

Dave felt a sudden deep painful sadness stealing over him, replacing the stubborn sullenness that had been in him. ’Bama was right, of course, as he usually was—in everything but one or two like Ginnie. “I guess you’re right,” he said. “I guess that’s really what we ought to do.”

“Shore it is,” ’Bama said. “And you know it as well as I do. Okay. You want to marry Ginnie, go ahead. Go live someplace else with her, and we’ll turn this old house back over to the judge. We’ve wore it out—for us. I’ll git me back a room somewhere in town, and go back to livin like I use to. What do you say?

“Hell,” he said, before Dave could answer, “I know how you feel about me bein sick. How do you think that makes me feel? knowin yore worryin about me half the time? You want to marry Ginnie: Okay. I want to keep on gettin drunk: Okay, too. Don’t you worry about me, and I won’t worry about you. Let’s just close up shop and call it a day. What do you say?”

“I guess you’re right,” Dave said. “Okay.”

“And we’ll bust up friends just like we always was,” ’Bama said. And he grinned, a sharp, bitter, grin—a grin which told Dave more about him, and about his diabetes, than any words that ’Bama himself could say.

“Sure,” Dave said. “That’s the way it ought to be, old buddy.”

“Fine!” ’Bama said, and stuck out his hand.

Dave took it. And for a moment, they looked square into each other’s eyes, and—Dave was sure—the same things rose up in both their minds: the old games of peapool and fourteen ball; General Nathan Bedford Forrest and the long wild ride to Florida; James Frye and his nephew Jim Custis; Miami; the gambling; the jai alai games; the drive home; the house; the gambling here; Dave’s book and the two stories; the garden they had all of them worked so hard on; all these things rose up in Dave’s mind, and he was sure they did in ’Bama’s. Then, embarrassedly, both of them let go of the other’s hand and looked away.

“But what about the annulment?” Dave said suddenly. “That won’t be through for three more weeks. Me and Ginnie can’t just go to settin up housekeeping somewhere, while that’s still in the works.”

’Bama moved his head back and forth emphatically. “Stay here,” he said. “Stay right here till it’s all worked out. He paused, and looked momentarily disbelieving again. “Jesus!” he said. “Stay here; and I’ll start lookin for me a place, too. And if you need any money, just let me know. I ain’t broke yet.”

“I don’t want to take any money off you,” Dave said. “Not when you feel like you feel. Not personal or anything, you know?”

“Sure,” ’Bama said. “Okay.”

And that was the way they left it. By the end of September, Judge Deacon took a frightened Ginnie into court for a brief session and the annulment was granted. Two days later, they got married, at the JP’s basement office, just like Mildred Pierce had done. They found a little apartment out in the East End not far from where Ginnie had once had her room—right out there where that dividing line was, that marked the first beginnings of Parkman’s “Hollywood.” It was a nice little two-room place, upstairs, with its own outside entrance. They moved in and set up housekeeping, mostly with stuff from the house on Lincoln Street, and Ginnie kept on with her job and Dave went back to work on his book. They were very happy. There was a small piece, very small, in the
Oregonian
about their marriage. Dave wondered, not without a certain satisfaction, whether Frank had seen it, and if so, what he thought.

F
RANK SAW IT,
right enough. But after, he didn’t think anything about it one way or the other. Since the Old Man had died—and, he guessed, too, since he himself had become so successful with the shopping center—a great deal of the pressure about the family had gone off of Frank. With the Old Man safely dead, the old scandal could be allowed to die too, and be forgotten. And as far as Dave went, Frank had given him his chance; and he had refused it. Frank did not even feel that he was his brother anymore, his kid brother that he had used to take care of—and had received so little gratitude for in return. He understood, from the little bit he heard around, that Dave was still working on some kind of a book; but then, he had been supposed to be working on that same book for over two years now, ever since he first came back to Parkman. And so far, there had been no book. And nothing else, except that one story in that little pocketbook. Probably, there wouldn’t ever be. Frank was quite sure of that. He read the marriage license notice in the
Oregonian
and forgot it, and he put his former brother out of his mind and forgot him, too. He had his own business, and his own problems, to worry about.

That winter of 1949 and ’50, after Frank had seen the notice of his brother’s marriage, and the following spring, up until the Korean War began, were in some ways both the happiest and the unhappiest period of Frank’s whole life. And it was easy to separate the two: Frank was happy, supremely happy, at three times, and three times only: one, when he was working—as he often was—so hard that he forgot himself completely; and two, when he was out at some game with little Walter; and three, when he was out “walking.” He was unhappy: one, whenever he was at home; two, whenever he was out at some social engagement that he had to make with Agnes; and three, when he was thinking—which was just about all the rest of the time. Even when he was drunk, he wasn’t happy. Because no matter how drunk he was—unless he drank himself unconscious, which he sometimes did—he could not stop thinking. Certainly, he could not stop thinking or forget himself when he was around Agnes. Even if he could have, Agnes certainly would never have allowed it. It was amazing what a happy, loving act they could put on out in public—and then to see it fall off of both of them the minute they got home and were alone.

Little Walter obviously could tell it, although he never said anything. And he and Agnes managed to pretty well control themselves around the boy. Not that that made any difference. He could sense it just the same. It was like an unspoken mutual pact between the three of them: that they would be polite and “loving” whenever Walter was present. But when Walter wasn’t there, and the two of them were alone together in the house, it was, Frank was sure, one of the most devastatingly miserable experiences that could happen to any human being. Even when they didn’t talk, the resentment, the
hatred,
the battle, hung heavy in the air. And, in the end, Agnes had defeated him, and driven his army from the field in rout, total rout. All except, that is, for his going “walking,” which she didn’t know about it—or even guess at. But other than that, she had won.

Agnes had, during the course of that winter and after considerable consultation, finally decided to have her gall bladder out. She had decided—more or less in conflict with Doc Cost’s advice; Doc said that it
might
help her—that that was the only thing that would do her any good. She was in constant pain, she said; and so she had it out. Doc Cost performed the operation. And Agnes had won a victory of the first magnitude over him, and over Walter, and over everybody else. It cost her a lot—her gall bladder—but she had won. The magnitude of just how conclusively she had won became apparent as soon as she came home from the hospital and took to her bed.

And so, for two weeks in November when she was out in Doc Cost’s hospital, and then for another six weeks that it took her to recover from the surgery, Mrs Davis—Old Jane’s successor—moved in and took care of Frank and of little Walter. It was a most miserable two months for Frank. Not only could Mrs Davis not cook worth a damn, but as soon as Agnes was out of the house, Frank’s frightened unreasonable panic came back over him again, and the urge to go out “walking” got noticeably stronger. He had been holding himself down pretty well, only going out one or two nights a month. Now, with Agnes gone, he found himself going out twice a week. That, in itself, scared him. But the thought that Agnes might die during her operation drove him nearly frantic. It was winter, too, now. And several times Frank feared he was going to freeze off both his ears, when he was out “walking.” Finally, he was forced to buy himself a pair of earmuffs. And that distressed him even more so, because what if somebody should walk up behind him when he had his earmuffs on, and he wouldn’t be able to hear them in time? After a while, he took to wearing his earmuffs only when he was on the sidewalk, and took them off as soon as he stepped into somebody’s yard. As long as he was on that
public
sidewalk he was all right; only when he stepped off onto the
private
yard was he really in any danger. It got so it became a definite dividing line for him, every time he took that single step off the sidewalk onto the winter grass.

Actually, in those two weeks when Agnes was in Doc’s hospital, and then the first two weeks after she was home but still very sick, he had only one real delicious experience: only one anywhere near approaching that so wonderful memory of Edith. But that one successful one was a real beaut. He got to see Clark Hibbard’s wife, Betty Lee, completely naked. He didn’t really know what made him go over there; and afterwards it terrified him: He was risking his own business future, to go to Clark’s. But he had always hungered to see what Betty Lee looked like naked—as far back and before, in fact, the very beginning of the bypass deal. So this one night he had ambled over there. They had a modern one-story house, newly built since the war, in one of the best sections of town, and it was a house that he knew well from the inside. What he did not know, but discovered that night, was that Clark and Betty Lee had separate bedrooms. Just like him and Agnes. But, hell, they were lots younger! He knew that there were two bedrooms; but he had always guessed that one was simply a guest room. Such, however, he discovered was not the case. Lights were on in both bedrooms when he took that one frightening step off the sidewalk onto the yard, and the first one he approached had Clark in it. And nobody but Clark. And when he slipped across to the other window on the east end, there was Betty Lee!

In a great many ways, it was an even better experience than the one with Edith had been, though of course he would always remember that one as his first.

But then, as if all of this were not luck enough, as he watched her Betty Lee turned her nude self to the full-length mirror on the door and ran her hands over her body. For a moment, Frank thought he might fall over on the ground in a dead faint. Then she put on her pajamas, and turned out the light, and went to bed.

Frank walked away. His knees were trembling so with excitement that he didn’t even know whether he could walk home or not. Hell, he might have to stop and call up one of his own taxis. But he made it. But, of course, the next day, terror—even stronger than his customary terror—attacked him viciously: my God! not only was Clark, her husband, his partner in the shopping center, but her own
father
was the man who put up most of the money for it! My God, if either one of them found out about it, what the hell terrible results might not have come from it! But then, gradually, he calmed himself. After all, nobody had seen him. But after that, he tried very hard to not go out anymore.

And—after Agnes’s return from the hospital; and those two very bad weeks when she was very sick and he had been afraid that she might die—after those four weeks, when she clearly began to mend, the urge to go out “walking” tapered down in him considerably; and for that he was grateful. Because when it hit him, he had no control over it at all. And anyway, he had finally added one new and fully complete possession to his list—and a magnificent one at that—Betty Lee Hibbard! He now had possessed Betty Lee Hibbard, as well as Edith and Geneve. He was willing to rest on that. And whenever he saw her after that, he could look at her in whatever clothes she was wearing and wonder at the magnificence of his own good luck, while the delicious secret knowledge of possession filled him.

He was aware that his urge to go out “walking” was all tied in with Agnes some way. He did it to get even with her, in his own private way, and he knew that. But there was something else in it, too, because the urge became stronger whenever Agnes went away and that peculiar objectless panic hit him. Frank didn’t attempt to understand it—and, in fact, strove mightily not even to think about it at all—but in some way the urge to “walk” tied in with his panic over Agnes’s absences. Even if she just went away for a few days, on a visit, which she began doing after she recovered from the operation, he would feel it begin to grow in him. And yet when she was home now—and after a month at home she had begun to get around, more and more, until by February they were going out again to dinners and parties together—when she was home, the old grinding resentment between them both was just as strong as always.

Only, Agnes had the upper hand now. Whenever she didn’t like anything, she could always have an attack and have to go to bed with her operation. And he, and Walter, were more or less forced to run around and wait on her, and get Mrs Davis in to run the house. My God, it wasn’t a very bright future prospect, was it? No wonder he wanted so desperately not to
think.

The work with the shopping center had tapered off some after the grand opening in September. The stores were all moved in now and running, and while there was still a good bit for him to do, it was a far cry from the heavy work schedule he had followed all summer. And Frank regretted it and was sorry it had slacked off. His own new store was set up and running, too—and making more money than the old jewelry store had ever made—and Al Lowe was running it, and needed no help. More in self-defense than for any other reason, Frank took over the management of the old store again himself: At least, it helped keep him busy. Business had fallen off around the square since the opening of the shopping center—just as everyone had known it would, in spite of all his talks to the businessmen—and it was Frank’s plan to downgrade the store on the square into a cheaper outfit that offered cheaper merchandise, so that in a way it was becoming almost what it had been when he first took it over after Agnes’s father died: a notion store. Not entirely, because he still offered jewelry—the cheaper sort—and watch repair. But most of the real business was being done for him at the new store in the shopping center. So methodically, Frank began to lower the level of the merchandise in the store uptown on the square, planning it thoughtfully to appeal to the cheaper type of buying. Lots of the poorer people in town were embarrassed to go into the ritzy new stores in the shopping center. His plan was to capture all that business with the old store. And it worked, too. And he was glad to do it. He had really moved up in the last year. There was already talk of electing him vice president of the Country Club next year. But it was strange to actually be downgrading this store he had worked so long to build up: down into—almost—what it had been when he first took it over.