The woman laughed. “I see you’re just as much of a shit as ever, Teddy,” she said. “Do come over to the table and say hello to the group.” With a fluttery wave of the hand, she turned and made her way through the jungle of tables toward the back of the room.
Boylan sat down and motioned to Rudolph to sit down, too. Rudolph could feel himself blushing. Luckily, it was too dark for anyone to tell.
Boylan drained his whiskey. “Silly woman,” he said. “I had an affair with her before the war. She wears badly.” Boylan didn’t look at Rudolph. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “It’s too damned noisy. And there are too many of our colored brethren on the premises. It’s like a slave ship after a successful mutiny.”
He waved to a waiter and got the check and paid it and they redeemed their coats from the hatcheck girl and went out. Mrs. Sykes, Cissy to her friends, was the first person Boylan had ever introduced Rudolph to, not counting Perkins, of course. If that’s what Boylan’s friends were like, you could understand why Boylan stayed up on his hill, alone. Rudolph was sorry the woman had come over to the table. The blush reminded him painfully that he was young and unworldly. Also, he would have liked to stay in there and listen to that trumpeter all night.
They walked east on Fourth Street, toward where the car was parked, past darkened shop fronts and bars which were little bursts of light and music and loud conversation on their way.
“New York is hysterical,” Boylan said. “Like an unsatisfied, neurotic woman. It’s an aging nymphomaniac of a city. God, the time I’ve wasted here.” The woman’s appearance had plainly disturbed him. “I’m sorry about that bitch,” he said.
“I didn’t mind,” Rudolph said. He did mind, but he didn’t want Boylan to think it bothered him.
“People’re filthy,” Boylan said. “The leer is the standard expression on the American face. Next time we come to town, bring your girl along. You’re too sensitive a boy to be exposed to rot like that.”
“I’ll ask her,” Rudolph said. He was almost sure Julie wouldn’t come. She didn’t like his being friendly with Boylan. Beast of prey, she called him, and the Peroxide Man.
“Maybe we’ll ask Gretchen and her young man and I’ll go through my old address books and see if any of the girls I used to know are still alive and we’ll make it a party.”
“It ought to be fun,” Rudolph said. “Like the sinking of the Titanic.”
Boylan laughed. “The clear vision of youth,” he said. “You’re a rewarding boy.” His tone was affectionate. “With any luck, you’ll be a rewarding man.”
They were at the car now. There was a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Boylan tore it up without looking at it.
“I’ll drive, if you like,” Rudolph said.
“I’m not drunk,” Boylan said curtly and got behind the wheel.
III
Thomas sat in the cracked chair, tilted back against the garage wall, a grass-stalk between his teeth, looking across at the lumberyard. It was a sunny day and the light reflected metallically off the last blaze of autumn leaves on the trees along the highway. There was a car that was supposed to be greased before two o’clock, but Thomas was in no hurry. He had had a fight the night before at a high-school dance and he was sore all over and his hands were puffed. He had kept cutting in on a boy who played tackle for the high-school team because the tackle’s girl was giving him the eye all night. The tackle had warned him to lay off, but he’d kept cutting in just the same. He knew it was going to wind up in a fight and he’d felt the old mixture of sensations, pleasure, fear, power, cold excitement, as he saw the tackle’s heavy face getting darker and darker while Thomas danced with his girl. Finally the two of them, he and the tackle, had gone outside the gym where the dance was taking place. The tackle was a monster, with big, heavy fists, and fast. That sonofabitch Claude would have pissed in his pants with joy if he had been there. Thomas had put the tackle down in the end, but his ribs felt as though they were caving in. It was his fourth fight in Elysium since the summer.
He had a date with the tackle’s girl for tonight.
Uncle Harold came out of the little office behind the filling station. Thomas knew that people had complained to Uncle Harold about his fights, but Uncle Harold hadn’t said anything about them. Uncle Harold also knew that there was a car to be greased before two o’clock, but he didn’t say anything about that either, although Thomas could tell from the expression on Uncle Harold’s face that it pained him to see Thomas lounging like that against the wall, chewing lazily on a stalk of grass. Uncle Harold didn’t say anything about anything anymore. Uncle Harold looked bad these days—his plump pink face was now yellowish and sagging and he had the expression on his face of a man waiting for a bomb to go off. The bomb was Thomas. All he had to do was hint to Tante Elsa about what was going on between Uncle Harold and Clothilde and they wouldn’t be singing Tristan and Isolde for a long time to come in the Jordache household. Thomas had no intention of telling Tante Elsa, but he didn’t let Uncle Harold in on the news. Let him stew.
Thomas had stopped bringing his lunch from home. For three days running he had left the paper bag of sandwiches and fruit that Clothilde prepared for him lying on the kitchen table when he had gone off to work. Clothilde hadn’t said anything. After three days she had caught on, and there were no more sandwiches waiting for him. He ate at the diner down the highway. He could afford it. Uncle Harold had raised him ten dollars a week. Slob.
“If anybody wants me,” Uncle Harold said, “I’m down at the showroom.”
Thomas kept staring out across the highway, chewing on the stalk of grass. Uncle Harold sighed and got into his car and drove off.
From inside the garage there came the sound of Coyne working a lathe. Coyne had seen him in one of his fights on a Sunday down at the lake and now was very polite with him and if Thomas neglected a job, Coyne more often than not would do it himself. Thomas played with the idea of letting Coyne do the two o’clock grease job.
Mrs. Dornfeld drove up in her 1940 Ford, and stopped at a pump. Thomas got up and walked over to the car slowly, not rushing anything.
“Hello, Tommy,” Mrs. Dornfeld said.
“Hi.”
“Fill her up, please, Tommy,” Mrs. Dornfeld said. She was a plump blonde of about thirty with disappointed, childish, blue eyes. Her husband worked as a teller in the bank, which was convenient, as Mrs. Dornfeld always knew where he was during business hours.
Thomas hung up the hose and screwed the cap back on and started washing the windshield.
“It would be nice if you paid me a visit today, Tommy,” Mrs. Dornfeld said. That was always what she called it—a visit. She had a prissy way of talking, with little flutterings of her eyelids and lips and hands.
“Maybe I can break loose at two o’clock,” Thomas said. Mr. Dornfeld was settled behind the bars of his teller’s cage from one-thirty on.
“We can have a nice long visit,” Mrs. Dornfeld said.
“If I can break loose.” Thomas didn’t know how he would feel after lunch.
She gave him a five-dollar bill and clutched at his hand when he gave her change. Every once in awhile after one of his visits she slipped him a ten-dollar bill. Mr. Dornfeld must be giving her nothing, but nothing.
There was always lipstick on his collar when he came from visiting Mrs. Dornfeld and he left it on purposely so that when Clothilde collected his clothes for washing she’d be sure to see it. Clothilde never mentioned the lipstick. The shirt would be neatly washed and ironed and left on his bed the next day.