The assistant (4 page)

Parkway, Louis said, "If you can't have everything you want, at least take something. Don't be so goddam proud." Touché. "What shall I take, Louis?" He paused. "Take less." "Less I'll never take." "People got to compromise." "I won't with my ideals." "So what'll you be then, a dried-up prune of an old maid? What's the percentage of that?" "None." "So what'll you do?" "I'll wait. I'll dream. Something will happen.' "Nuts," he said. He let her off in front of the grocery. "Thanks for everything." "You'll make me laugh." Louis drove off. The store was closed, upstairs dark. She pictured her father asleep after his long day, dreaming of Ephraim. What am I saving myself for? she asked herself. What unhappy Bober fate? It snowed lightly the next day-too early in the year, complained Ida, and when the snow had melted it snowed again. The grocer remarked, as he was dressing in the dark, that he would shovel after he had opened the store. He enjoyed shoveling snow. It reminded him that he had practically lived in it in his boyhood; but Ida forbade him to exert himself because he still complained of dizziness. Later, when he tried to lug the milk cases through the snow, he found it all but impossible. And there was no Frank Alpine to help him, for he had disappeared after washing the window. Ida came down shortly after her husband, in a heavy cloth coat, a woolen scarf pinned around her head and wearing galoshes. She shoveled a path through the snow and together they pulled in the milk. Only then did Morris notice that a quart bottle was missing from one of the cases. "Who took it?" Ida cried. "How do I know?" "Did you count yet the rolls?" "No." "I told you always to count right away." "The baker will steal from me? I know him twenty years." "Count what everybody delivers, I told you a thousand times." He dumped the rolls out of the basket and counted them. Three were missing and he had sold only one to the Poilisheh. To appease Ida he said they were all there. The next morning another quart of milk and two rolls were gone. He was worried but didn't tell Ida the truth when she asked him if anything else was missing. He often hid unpleasant news from her because she made it worse. He mentioned the missing bottle to the milkman, who answered, "Morris, I swear I left every bottle in that case. Am I responsible for this lousy neighborhood?" He promised to cart the milk cases into the vestibule for a few days. Maybe whoever was stealing the bottles would be afraid to go in there. Morris considered asking the milk company for a storage box. Years ago he had had one at the curb, a large wooden box in which the milk was padlocked; but he had given it up after developing a hernia lifting the heavy cases out, so he decided against a box. On the third day, when a quart of milk and two rolls had again been taken, the grocer, much disturbed, considered calling the police. It wasn't the first time he had lost milk and rolls in this neighborhood. That had happened more than once-usually some poor person stealing a breakfast. For this reason Morris preferred not to call the police but to get rid of the thief by himself. To do it, he would usually wake up very early and wait at his bedroom window in the dark. Then when the man-sometimes it was a woman-showed up and was helping himself to the milk, Morris would quickly raise the window and shout down, "Get outa here, you thief you." The thief, startled-sometimes it was a customer who could afford to buy the milk he was stealing-would drop the bottle and run. Usually he never appeared again-a lost customer cut another way-and the next goniff was somebody else. So this morning Morris arose at four-thirty, a little before the milk was delivered, and sat in the cold in his long underwear, to wait. The street was heavy with darkness as he peered down. Soon the milk truck came, and the milkman, his breath foggy, lugged the two cases of milk into the vestibule. Then the street was silent again, the night dark, the snow white. One or two people trudged by. An hour later, Witzig, the baker, delivered the rolls, but no one else stopped at the door. Just before six Morris dressed hastily and went downstairs. A bottle of milk was gone, and when he counted the rolls, so were two of them. He still kept the truth from Ida. The next night she awoke and found him at the window in the dark. "What's the matter?" she asked, sitting up in bed. "I can't sleep." "So don't sit in your underwear in the cold. Come back to bed." He did as she said. Later, the milk and rolls were missing. In the store he asked the Poilisheh whether she had seen anyone sneak into the vestibule and steal a quart of milk. She stared at him with small eyes, grabbed the sliced roll and slammed the door. Morris had a theory that the thief lived on the block. Nick Fuso wouldn't do such a thing; if he did Morris would have heard him going down the stairs, then coming up again. The thief was somebody from outside. He sneaked along the street close to the houses, where Morris couldn't see him because of the cornice that hung over the store; then he softly opened the hall door, took the milk, two rolls from the bag, and stole away, hugging the house fronts. The grocer suspected Mike Papadopolous, the Greek boy who lived on the floor above Karp's store. He had served a reformatory sentence at eighteen. A year later he had in the dead of night climbed down the fire escape overhanging Karp's back yard, boosted himself up on the fence and forced a window into the grocery. There he stole three cartons of cigarettes, and a roll of dimes that Morris had left in the cash register. In the morning, as the grocer was opening the store, Mike's mother, a thin, old-looking woman, returned the cigarettes and dimes to him. She had caught her son coming in with them and had walloped his head with a shoe. She clawed his face, making him confess what he had done. Returning the cigarettes and dimes, she had begged Morris not to have the boy arrested and he had assured her he wouldn't do such a thing. On this day that he had guessed it might be Mike taking the milk and rolls, shortly after eight A. M., Morris went up the stairs and knocked reluctantly on Mrs. Papadopolous' door. "Excuse me that I bother you," he said, and told her what had been happening to his milk and rolls. "Mike work all nights in restaurants," she said. "No come home till nine o'clock in mornings. Sleep all days." Her eyes smoldered. The grocer left. Now he was greatly troubled. Should he tell Ida and let her call the police? They were bothering him at least once a week with questions about the holdup but had produced nobody. Still, maybe it would be best to call them, for this stealing had gone on for almost a week. Who could afford it? Yet he waited, and that night as he was leaving the store by the side door, which he always padlocked after shutting the front door from inside, he flicked on the cellar light and as he peered down the stairs, his nightly habit, his heart tightened with foreboding that somebody was down there. Morris unlocked the lock, went back into the store and got a hatchet. Forcing his courage, he slowly descended the wooden steps. The cellar was empty. He searched in the dusty storage bins, poked around all over, but there was no sign of anybody. In the morning he told Ida what was going on and she, calling him big fool, telephoned the police. A stocky, red-faced detective came, Mr. Minogue, from a nearby precinct, who was in charge of investigating Morris's holdup. He was a soft-spoken, unsmiling man, bald, a widower who had once lived in this neighborhood. He had a son Ward, who had gone to Helen's junior high school, a wild boy, always in trouble for manhandling girls. When he saw one he knew playing in front of her house, or on the stoop, he would come swooping down and chase her into the hall. There, no matter how desperately the girl struggled, or tenderly begged him to stop, Ward forced his hand down her dress and squeezed her breast till she screamed. Then by the time her mother came running down the stairs he had ducked out of the hall, leaving the girl sobbing. The detective, when he heard of these happenings, regularly beat up his son, but it didn't do much good. Then one day, about eight years ago, Ward was canned from his job for stealing from the company. His father beat him sick and bloody with his billy and drove him out of the neighborhood. After that, Ward disappeared and nobody knew where he had gone. People felt sorry for the detective, for he was a strict man and they knew what it meant to him to have such a son. Mr. Minogue seated himself at the table in the rear and listened to Ida's complaint. He slipped on his glasses and wrote in a little black notebook. The detective said he would have a cop watch the store mornings after the milk was delivered, and if there was any more trouble to let him know. As he was leaving, he said, "Morris, would you recognize Ward Minogue if you happened to see him again? I hear he's been seen around but whereabouts I don't know." "I don't know," said Morris. "Maybe yes or maybe no. I didn't see him for years." "If I ever meet up with him," said the detective, "I might bring him in to you for identification." "What for?" "I don't know myself-just for possible identification." Ida said afterward that if Morris had called the police in the first place, he might have saved himself a few bottles of milk that they could hardly afford to lose. That night, on an impulse, the grocer closed the store an hour later than usual. He snapped on the cellar light and cautiously descended the stairs, gripping his hatchet. Near the bottom he uttered a cry and the hatchet fell from his hands. A man's drawn and haggard face stared up at him in dismay. It was Frank Alpine, gray and unshaven. He had been asleep with his hat and coat on, sitting on a box against the wall, The light had awakened him. "What do you want here?" Morris cried out. "Nothing," Frank said dully. "I have just been sleeping in the cellar. No harm done." "Did you steal from me my milk and rolls?" "Yes," he confessed. "On account of I was hungry." "Why didn't you ask me?" Frank got up. "Nobody has any responsibility to take care of me but myself. I couldn't find any job. I used up every last cent I had. My coat is too thin for this cold and lousy climate. The snow and the rain get in my shoes so I am always shivering. Also, I had no place to sleep. That's why I came down here." "Don't you stay any more with your sister?" "I have no sister. That was a lie I told you. I am alone by myself." "Why you told me you had a sister?" "I didn't want you to think I was a bum." Morris regarded the man silently. "Were you ever in prison sometimes?" "Never, I swear to Christ." "How you came to me in my cellar?" "By accident. One night I was walking around in the snow, so I tried the cellar door and found out you left it unlocked, then I started coming down at night about an hour after you closed the store. In the morning, when they delivered the milk and rolls, I sneaked up through the hall, opened the door and took what I needed for breakfast. That's practically all I ate all day. After you came down and got busy with some customer or a salesman, I left by the hallway with the empty milk bottle under my coat. Later I threw it away in a lot. That's all there is to it. Tonight I took a chance and came in while you were still in the back of the store, because I have a cold and don't feel too good." "How can you sleep in such a cold and drafty cellar?" "I slept in worse." "Are you hungry now?" "I'm always hungry." "Come upstairs." Morris picked up his hatchet, and Frank, blowing his nose in his damp handkerchief, followed him up the stairs. Morris lit a light in the store and made two fat liverwurst sandwiches with mustard, and in the back heated up a can of bean soup. Frank sat at the table in his coat, his hat lying at his feet. He ate with great hunger, his hand trembling as he brought the spoon to his mouth. The grocer had to look away. As the man was finishing his meal, with coffee and cup cakes, Ida came down in felt slippers and bathrobe. "What happened?" she asked in fright, when she saw Frank Alpine. "He's hungry," Morris said. She guessed at once. "He stole the milk!" "He was hungry," explained Morris. "He slept in the cellar." "I was practically starving," said Frank. "Why didn't you look for a job?" Ida asked. "I looked all over." After, Ida said to Frank, "When you finish, please go someplace else." She turned to her husband. "Morris, tell him to go someplace else. We are poor people." "This he knows." "I'll go away," Frank said, "as the lady wishes." "Tonight is already too late," Morris said. "Who wants he should walk all night in the streets?" "I don't want him here." She was tense. "Where you want him to go?" Frank set his coffee cup on the saucer and listened with interest. "This ain't my business," Ida answered. "Don't anybody worry," said Frank. "I'll leave in ten minutes' time. You got a cigarette, Morris?" The grocer went to the bureau and took out of the drawer a crumpled pack of cigarettes. "It's stale," he apologized. "Don't make any difference." Frank lit a stale cigarette, inhaling with pleasure. "I'll go after a short while," he said to Ida. "I don't like trouble," she explained. "I won't make any. I might look like a bum in these clothes, but I am not. All my life I lived with good people." "Let him stay here tonight on the couch," Morris said to Ida. "No. Give him better a dollar he should go someplace else." "The cellar would be fine," Frank remarked. "It's too damp. Also rats." "If you let me stay there one more night I promise I will get out the first thing in the morning. You don't have to be afraid to trust me. I am an honest man." "You can sleep here," Morris said. "Morris, you crazy," shouted Ida. "I'll work it off for you," Frank said. "Whatever I cost you I'll pay you back. Anything you want me to do, I'll do it." "We will see," Morris said. "No," insisted Ida. But Morris won out, and they went up, leaving Frank in the back, the gas radiator left lit. "He will clean out the store," Ida said wrathfully. "Where is his truck?" Morris asked, smiling. Seriously he said, "He's a poor boy. I feel sorry for him." They went to bed. Ida slept badly. Sometimes she was racked by awful dreams. Then she awoke and sat up in bed, straining to hear noises in the store-of Frank packing huge bags of groceries to steal. But there was no sound. She dreamed she came down in the morning and all the stock was gone, the shelves as barren as the picked bones of dead birds. She dreamed, too, that the Italyener had sneaked up into the house and was peeking through the keyhole of Helen's door. Only when Morris got up to open the store did Ida fall fitfully asleep. The grocer trudged down the stairs with a dull pain in his head. His legs felt weak. His sleep had not been
refreshing. The snow was gone from the streets and the milk boxes were again lying on the sidewalk near the curb. None of the bottles were missing. The grocer was about to drag in the milk cases when the Poilisheh came by. She went inside and placed three pennies on the counter. He entered with the brown bag of rolls, cut up one and wrapped it. She took it wordlessly and left. Morris looked through the window in the wall. Frank was asleep on the couch in his clothes, his coat covering him. His beard was black, his mouth loosely open. The grocer went out into the street, grabbed both milk boxes and yanked. The shape of a black hat blew up in his head, flared into hissing light, and exploded. He thought he was rising but felt himself fall. Frank dragged him in and laid him on the couch. He ran upstairs and banged on the door. Helen, holding a housecoat over her nightdress, opened it. She suppressed a cry. "Tell your mother your father just passed out. I called the ambulance." She screamed. As he ran down the stairs he could hear Ida moaning. Frank hurried into the back of the store. The Jew lay white and motionless on the couch. Frank gently removed his apron. Draping the loop over his own head, he tied the tapes around him. "I need the experience," he muttered.