Nine Stories Read online

  <<<Sandra ...>>>

  <<<Yes, ma'am?>>> Sandra looked alertly past Mrs. Snell's hat.

  <<<Aren't there any more pickles? I want to bring him a pickle.>>>

  <<<He et 'em," Sandra reported intelligently. <<<He et 'em before he went to bed last night.

  There was only two left.>>>

  <<<Oh. Well, I'll get some when I go to the station. I thought maybe I could lure him out of that boat.>>> Boo Boo shut the refrigerator door and walked over to look out of the lakefront window. <<<Do we need anything else?>>> she asked, from the window.

  <<<Just bread.>>>

  <<<I left your check on the hall table, Mrs. Snell. Thank you.>>>

  <<<O. K.," said Mrs. Snell. <<<I hear Lionel's supposeta be runnin' away.>>> She gave a short laugh.

  <<<Certainly looks that way," Boo Boo said, and slid her hands into her hip pockets.

  <<<At least he don't run very far away," Mrs. Snell said, giving another short laugh.

  At the window, Boo Boo changed her position slightly, so that her back wasn't directly to the two women at the table. <<<No," she said, and pushed back some hair behind her ear. She added, purely informatively: <<<He's been hitting the road regularly since he was two. But never very hard. I think the farthest he ever got--in the city, at least--was to the Mall in Central Park. Just a couple of blocks from home. The least far--or nearest--he ever got was to the front door of our building. He stuck around to say goodbye to his father.>>>

  Both women at the table laughed.

  <<<The Mall's where they all go skatin' in New York," Sandra said very sociably to Mrs.

  Snell. <<<The kids and all.>>>

  <<<Oh!>>> said Mrs. Snell.

  <<<He was only three. It was just last year," Boo Boo said, taking out a pack of cigarettes and a folder of matches from a side pocket in her jeans. She lit a cigarette, while the two women spiritedly watched her. <<<Big excitement. We had the whole police force out looking for him.>>>

  <<<They find him?>>> said Mrs. Snell.

  <<<Sure they found him!>>> said Sandra with contempt. <<<Wuddaya think?>>>

  <<<They found him at a quarter past eleven of night, in the middle of--my God, February, I think. Not a child in the park. Just muggers, I guess, and an assortment of roaming degenerates. He was sitting on the floor of the bandstand, rolling a marble back and forth along a crack. Half-frozen to death and looking-->>>

  <<<Holy Mackerel!>>> said Mrs. Snell. <<<How come he did it? I mean what was he runnin' away about?>>>

  Boo Boo blew a single, faulty smoke-ring at a pane of glass. <<<Some child in the park that afternoon had come up to him with the dreamy misinformation, `You stink, kid.' At least, that's why we think he did it. I don't know, Mrs. Snell. It's all slightly over my head.>>>

  <<<How long's he been doin' it?>>> asked Mrs. Snell. <<<I mean how long's he been doin' it?>>>

  <<<Well, at the age of two-and-a-half," Boo Boo said biographically, <<<he sought refuge under a sink in the basement of our apartment house. Down in the laundry. Naomi somebody--a close friend of his--told him she had a worm in her thermos bottle. At least, that's all we could get out of him.>>> Boo Boo sighed, and came away from the window with a long ash on her cigarette. She started for the screen door. <<<I'll have another go at it," she said, by way of goodby to both women.

  They laughed.

  <<<Mildred," Sandra, still laughing, addressed Mrs. Snell, <<<you're gonna miss your bus if ya don't get a move on.>>>

  Boo Boo closed the screen door behind her.

  She stood on the slight downgrade of her front lawn, with the low, glaring, late afternoon sun at her back. About two hundred yards ahead of her, her son Lionel was sitting in the stem seat of his father's dinghy. Tied, and stripped of its main and jib sails, the dinghy floated at a perfect right angle away from the far end of the pier. Fifty feet or so beyond it, a lost or abandoned water ski floated bottom up, but there were no pleasure boats to be seen on the lake; just a stern-end view of the county launch on its way over to Leech's Landing. Boo Boo found it queerly difficult to keep Lionel in steady focus. The sun, though not especially hot, was nonetheless so brilliant that it made any fairly distant image--a boy, a boat--seem almost as wavering and refractional as a stick in water. After a couple of minutes, Boo Boo let the image go. She peeled down her cigarette Army style, and then started toward the pier.

  It was October, and the pier boards no longer could hit her in the face with reflected heat. She walked along whistling <<<Kentucky Babe>>> through her teeth. When she reached the end of the pier, she squatted, her knees audible, at the right edge, and looked down at Lionel. He was less than an oar's length away from her. He didn't look up.

  <<<Ahoy," Boo Boo said. <<<Friend. Pirate. Dirty dog. I'm back.>>>

  Still not looking up, Lionel abruptly seemed called upon to demonstrate his sailing ability. He swung the dead tiller all the way to the right, then immediately yanked it back in to his side. He kept his eyes exclusively on the deck of the boat.

  <<<It is I," Boo Boo said. <<<Vice-Admiral Tannenbaum. Nee Glass. Come to inspect the stermaphors.>>>

  There was a response.

  <<<You aren't an admiral. You're a lady," Lionel said. His sentences usually had at least one break of faulty breath control, so that, often, his emphasized words, instead of rising, sank. Boo Boo not only listened to his voice, she seemed to watch it.

  <<<Who told you that? Who told you I wasn't an admiral?>>>

  Lionel answered, but inaudibly.

  <<<Who?>>> said Boo Boo.

  <<<Daddy.>>>

  Still in a squatting position, Boo Boo put her left hand through the V of her legs, touching the pier boards in order to keep her balance. <<<Your daddy's a nice fella," she said, <<<but he's probably the biggest landlubber I know. It's perfectly true that when I'm in port I'm a lady--that's true. But my true calling is first, last, and always the bounding-->>>

  <<<You aren't an admiral," Lionel said.

  <<<I beg your pardon?>>>

  <<<You aren't an admiral. You're a lady all the time.>>>

  There was a short silence. Lionel filled it by changing the course of his craft again--his hold on the tiller was a two-armed one. He was wearing khaki-colored shorts and a clean, white T-shirt with a dye picture, across the chest, of Jerome the Ostrich playing the violin. He was quite tanned, and his hair, which was almost exactly like his mother's in color and quality, was a little sun-bleached on top.

  <<<Many people think I'm not an admiral," Boo Boo said, watching him. <<<Just because I don't shoot my mouth off about it.>>> Keeping her balance, she took a cigarette and matches out of the side pocket of her jeans. <<<I'm almost never tempted to discuss my rank with people. Especially with little boys who don't even look at me when I talk to them. I'd be drummed out of the bloomin' service.>>> Without lighting her cigarette, she suddenly got to her feet, stood unreasonably erect, made an oval out of the thumb and index finger of her right hand, drew the oval to her mouth, and--kazoo style--sounded something like a bugle call. Lionel instantly looked up. In all probability, he was aware that the call was bogus, but nonetheless he seemed deeply aroused; his mouth fell open. Boo Boo sounded the call--a peculiar amalgamation of <<<Taps>>> and <<<Reveille>>> -- three times, without any pauses. Then, ceremoniously, she saluted the opposite shoreline. When she finally reassumed her squat on the pier edge, she seemed to do so with maximum regret, as if she had just been profoundly moved by one of the virtues of naval tradition closed to the public and small boys. She gazed out at the petty horizon of the lake for a moment, then seemed to remember that she was not absolutely alone.

  She glanced-venerably--down at Lionel, whose mouth was still open. <<<That was a secret bugle call that only admirals are allowed to hear.>>> She lit her cigarette, and blew out the match with a theatrically thin, long stream of smoke. <<<If anybody knew I let you hear that call-->>> She shook her head. She again fixed the sextant of her eye on the horizon.

  <<<Do it again.>>>

&n
bsp; <<<Impossible.>>>

  <<<Why?>>>

  Boo Boo shrugged. <<<Too many low-grade officers around, for one thing.>>> She changed her position, taking up a cross-legged, Indian squat. She pulled up her socks. <<<I'll tell you what I'll do, though," she said, matter-of-factly. <<<If you'll tell me why you're running away, I'll blow every secret bugle call for you I know. All right?>>>

  Lionel immediately looked down at the deck again. <<<No," he said.

  <<<Why not?>>>

  <<<Because.>>>

  <<<Because why?>>>

  <<<Because I don't want to," said Lionel, and jerked the tiller for emphasis.

  Boo Boo shielded the right side of her face from the glare of the sun. <<<You told me you were all through running away," she said. <<<We talked about it, and you told me you were all through. You promised me.>>>

  Lionel gave a reply, but it didn't carry. <<<What?>>> said Boo Boo.

  <<<I didn't promise.>>>

  <<<Ah, yes, you did. You most certainly did.>>>

  Lionel resumed steering his boat. <<<If you're an admiral," he said, <<<where's your fleet?>>>

  <<<My fleet. I'm glad you asked me that," Boo Boo said, and started to lower herself into the dinghy.

  <<<Get off!>>> Lionel ordered, but without giving over to shrillness, and keeping his eyes down. <<<Nobody can come in.>>>

  <<<They can't?>>> Boo Boo's foot was already touching the bow of the boat. She obediently drew it back up to pier level. <<<Nobody at all?>>> She got back into her Indian squat. <<<Why not?>>>

  Lionel's answer was complete, but, again, not loud enough.

  <<<What?>>> said Boo Boo.

  <<<Because they're not allowed.>>>

  Boo Boo, keeping her eyes steadily on the boy, said nothing for a full minute.

  <<<I'm sorry to hear it," she said, finally. <<<I'd just love to come down in your boat. I'm so lonesome for you. I miss you so much. I've been all alone in the house all day without anybody to talk to.>>>

  Lionel didn't swing the tiller. He examined the grain of wood in its handle. <<<You can talk to Sandra," he said.

  <<<Sandra's busy," Boo Boo said. <<<Anyway, I don't want to talk to Sandra, I want to talk to you. I wanna come down in your boat and talk to you.>>>

  <<<You can talk from there.>>>

  <<<What?>>>

  <<<You can talk from there.>>>

  <<<No, I can't. It's too big a distance. I have to get up close.>>>

  Lionel swung the tiller. <<<Nobody can come in," he said.

  <<<What?>>>

  <<<Nobody can come in.>>>

  <<<Well, will you tell me from there why you're running away?>>> Boo Boo asked. <<<After you promised me you were all through?>>>

  A pair of underwater goggles lay on the deck of the dinghy, near the stem seat. For answer, Lionel secured the headstrap of the goggles between the big and second toes of his right foot, and, with a deft, brief, leg action, flipped the goggles overboard. They sank at once.

  <<<That's nice. That's constructive," said Boo Boo. <<<Those belong to your Uncle Webb.

  Oh, he'll be so delighted.>>> She dragged on her cigarette. <<<They once belonged to your Uncle Seymour.>>>

  <<<I don't care.>>>

  <<<I see that. I see you don't," Boo Boo said. Her cigarette was angled peculiarly between her fingers; it burned dangerously close to one of her knuckle grooves. Suddenly feeling the heat, she let the cigarette drop to the surface of the lake. Then she took out something from one of her side pockets. It was a package, about the size of a deck of cards, wrapped in white paper and tied with green ribbon. <<<This is a key chain," she said, feeling the boy's eyes look up at her. <<<Just like Daddy's. But with a lot more keys on it than Daddy's has. This one has ten keys.>>>

  Lionel leaned forward in his seat, letting go the tiller. He held out his hands in catching position. <<<Throw it?>>> he said. <<<Please?>>>

  <<<Let's keep our seats a minute, Sunshine. I have a little thinking to do. I should throw this key chain in the lake.>>>

  Lionel stared up at her with his mouth open. He closed his mouth. <<<It's mine," he said on a diminishing note of justice.

  Boo Boo, looking down at him, shrugged. <<<I don't care.>>>

  Lionel slowly sat back in his seat, watching his mother, and reached behind him for the tiller. His eyes reflected pure perception, as his mother had known they would.

  <<<Here.>>> Boo Boo tossed the package down to him. It landed squarely on his lap.

  He looked at it in his lap, picked it off, looked at it in his hand, and flicked it-- sidearm--into the lake. He then immediately looked up at Boo Boo, his eyes filled not with defiance but tears. In another instant, his mouth was distorted into a horizontal figure-8, and he was crying mightily.

  Boo Boo got to her feet, gingerly, like someone whose foot has gone to sleep in theatre, and lowered herself into the dinghy. In a moment, she was in the stern seat, with the pilot on her lap, and she was rocking him and kissing the back of his neck and giving out certain information: <<<Sailors don't cry, baby. Sailors never cry. Only when their ships go down. Or when they're shipwrecked, on rafts and all, with nothing to drink except-->>>

  <<<Sandra--told Mrs. Smell--that Daddy's a big--sloppy--kike.>>>

  Just perceptibly, Boo Boo flinched, but she lifted the boy off her lap and stood him in front of her and pushed back his hair from his forehead. <<<She did, huh?>>> she said.

  Lionel worked his head up and down, emphatically. He came in closer, still crying, to stand between his mother's legs.

  <<<Well, that isn't too terrible," Boo Boo said, holding him between the two vises of her arms and legs. <<<That isn't the worst that could happen.>>> She gently bit the rim of the boy's ear. <<<Do you know what a kike is, baby?>>>

  Lionel was either unwilling or unable to speak up at once. At any rate, he waited till the hiccupping aftermath of his tears had subsided a little. Then his answer was delivered, muffled but intelligible, into the warmth of Boo Boo's neck. <<<It's one of those things that go up in the air," he said. <<<With string you hold.>>>

  The better to look at him, Boo Boo pushed her son slightly away from her. Then she put a wild hand inside the seat of his trousers, startling the boy considerably, but almost immediately withdrew it and decorously tucked in his shirt for him. <<<Tell you what we'll do," she said. <<<We'll drive to town and get some pickles, and some bread, and we'll eat the pickles in the car, and then we'll go to the station and get Daddy, and then we'll bring Daddy home and make him take us for a ride in the boat. You'll have to help him carry the sails down. O. K.?>>>

  <<<O. K.," said Lionel.

  They didn't walk back to the house; they raced. Lionel won.

  For Esme: --with Love and Squalor

  JUST RECENTLY, by air mail, I received an invitation to a wedding that will take place in England on April 18th. It happens to be a wedding I'd give a lot to be able to get to, and when the invitation first arrived, I thought it might just be possible for me to make the trip abroad, by plane, expenses be hanged. However, I've since discussed the matter rather extensively with my wife, a breathtakingly levelheaded girl, and we've decided against it--for one thing, I'd completely forgotten that my mother-in-law is looking forward to spending the last two weeks in April with us. I really don't get to see Mother Grencher terribly often, and she's not getting any younger. She's fifty-eight. (As she'd be the first to admit.) All the same, though, wherever I happen to be I don't think I'm the type that doesn't even lift a finger to prevent a wedding from flatting. Accordingly, I've gone ahead and jotted down a few revealing notes on the bride as I knew her almost six years ago. If my notes should cause the groom, whom I haven't met, an uneasy moment or two, so much the better. Nobody's aiming to please, here. More, really, to edify, to instruct.

  In April of 1944, I was among some sixty American enlisted men who took a rather specialized pre-Invasion training course, directed by British Intelligence, in Devon, England. And as I look back, it seems to me that we were fairly uniqu
e, the sixty of us, in that there wasn't one good mixer in the bunch. We were all essentially letter-writing types, and when we spoke to each other out of the line of duty, it was usually to ask somebody if he had any ink he wasn't using. When we weren't writing letters or attending classes, each of us went pretty much his own way. Mine usually led me, on clear days, in scenic circles around the countryside. Rainy days, I generally sat in a dry place and read a book, often just an axe length away from a ping-pong table.

  The training course lasted three weeks, ending on a Saturday, a very rainy one. At seven that last night, our whole group was scheduled to entrain for London, where, as rumor had it, we were to be assigned to infantry and airborne divisions mustered for the D Day landings. By three in the afternoon, I'd packed all my belongings into my barrack bag, including a canvas gas-mask container full of books I'd brought over from the Other Side. (The gas mask itself I'd slipped through a porthole of the Mauretania some weeks earlier, fully aware that if the enemy ever did use gas I'd never get the damn thing on in time.) I remember standing at an end window of our Quonset but for a very long time, looking out at the slanting, dreary rain, my trigger finger itching imperceptibly, if at all. I could hear behind my back the uncomradely scratching of many fountain pens on many sheets of V-mail paper. Abruptly, with nothing special in mind, I came away from the window and put on my raincoat, cashmere muffler, galoshes, woollen gloves, and overseas cap (the last of which, I'm still told, I wore at an angle all my own--slightly down over both ears). Then, after synchronizing my wristwatch with the clock in the latrine, I walked down the long, wet cobblestone hill into town. I ignored the flashes of lightning all around me. They either had your number on them or they didn't.

  In the center of town, which was probably the wettest part of town, I stopped in front of a church to read the bulletin board, mostly because the featured numerals, white on black, had caught my attention but partly because, after three years in the Army, I'd become addicted to reading bulletin boards. At three-fifteen, the board stated, there would be children's-choir practice. I looked at my wristwatch, then back at the board. A sheet of paper was tacked up, listing the names of the children expected to attend practice. I stood in the rain and read all the names, then entered the church.