“I don’t care whose fault it was, promise me you will not get on that ladder again. Let Macky do it or call next door and get Merle.”
“All right.”
“You are not as young as you used to be, you know.”
Later that night, Aunt Elner called. “Norma, let me ask you this.”
“What?”
“Who is younger than they used to be? I don’t know anybody; even those that get face-lifts are still just as old as they were. Even if you went into a different time zone you’d still be the same age, wouldn’t you?”
Norma had to admit she was right but added, “That’s not the point; the point is you need to be more careful.”
“The point is that Griggs dog ought to stay out of my yard and quit chasing my cat.”
“Aunt Elner.”
“I know, a promise is a promise.”
But a new day is a new day. The next morning around ten, when Linda was at school, the phone rang. Norma picked up.
“Norma? I have a question for you,” said Aunt Elner.
“Hold on, let me turn off my beans.”
“What kind of beans are you making?”
“String beans. I just threw in a handful so Macky would have something green with his lunch. Why?”
“I just wondered. . . . What’s he getting?”
“Salmon croquettes, sliced tomatoes, corn, and string beans.”
“What kind of bread?”
“Cornbread. I had a few slices left over. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“Did you have a question for me?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What was it?”
“Wait a minute . . . let me think.”
“What was it about?”
“I know. Norma, do I have any insurance?”
“What kind of insurance?”
“Any kind.”
“Uncle Will had his Mason’s policy, I think. Why?”
“Well, some lady came to the door and wanted to know and I didn’t know what to tell her so I told her she’d have to ask you.”
“What woman?”
“Some woman. I don’t know who she was . . . she left her card. Do you want me to go and get it?”
“Yes.”
There was a loud clack when Aunt Elner put the phone down on the table. A few minutes later she came back on the line.
“Her name is June Garza. Do you know her?”
“No, what company is she with?”
“Aetna . . . Insurance . . . so I told her that my niece and her husband handle all that for me.”
“Good, what did she say?”
“She said she wanted to know where you lived so she could ask you about it.”
“Good Lord, you didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Well, I had to. She asked me.”
“How long ago . . . ?”
“Just a little while ago—”
“Oh Lord . . .”
“She’s real nice. She has on a green suit and—”
“Aunt Elner, let me call you back.”
“Okay . . . I just wanted you to be on the lookout.”
“I’ll call you back.” Norma put down the phone and ran into the living room and looked up and down the street and shut the front door and closed her blinds and pulled the curtains. She went back to the kitchen and closed those blinds and she hid down under the wall phone, reached up, and dialed Macky’s number. When he picked up she whispered, “Macky . . . when you come home, don’t come in the front door, come up the alley and come in the back. And knock three times so I’ll know it’s you.”
“What?”
“Aunt Elner gave some insurance woman our address and she’s headed over here . . . and I don’t want to have to deal with her.”
“You don’t have to deal with her—just go to the door and tell her you don’t need any insurance.”
“I’m not going to be rude to her, for God’s sake.”
“That’s not being rude.”
“You can’t just say no, until you let them go through their sales things. You don’t know why that poor woman is having to work . . . she might have children to support. You might be able to break her heart but I can’t—”
“Norma, you are not going to break her heart. She’s an insurance salesman.”
“She’s probably married to some alcoholic and . . . shhh.” There was a knock at the front door. “Oh my God, she’s here . . . be quiet!” She pulled the phone into the pantry and hid.
“Norma, just go to the door and tell her thank you very much but we don’t need any insurance. If you don’t go now, she’ll just come back. You don’t want to get her hopes up . . . that’s even worse. You have to learn to say no. You don’t have to be rude. Go on now, get it over with.”
The woman at the door continued to knock. She was not going away.
“Oh, Macky, I could just kill you.”
Norma put the phone down, stood there for a moment, screwed her courage to the wall, took a deep breath, and headed for the door.
About forty-five minutes later the bell over the hardware store door rang and a lady of about forty, wearing a green suit and carrying a brown attaché case walked in. She approached Macky with a pleasant smile. “Mr. Warren?”
Macky said, “Yes, ma’am, what can I do for you?”
“Mr. Warren, I’m June Garza from Aetna Insurance and your wife said that you might be interested in hearing about our new three-and-one policy . . . and I wondered if now might be a convenient time?” The phone rang. “I can come back after lunch if you like. . . .”
Macky was caught. “Uh, well . . . excuse me, Mrs. Garza . . . let me get that.” He picked up the phone. Norma was on the other end.
“Macky, is she there yet?”
Macky smiled back at Mrs. Garza. “That’s right.”
“Now, before you get mad at me, I just wanted you to know her husband is a diabetic and lost his left leg and is probably going to lose the other one somewhere down the line.”
“Yes, well, thank you very much.”
Norma continued. “And her mother-in-law has had three strokes and is on very expensive high-blood-pressure medicine. And one of the reasons she has to work today is because they didn’t have insurance.”
“All righty, anything else?” He pretended to be writing down a list of things.
“I know you’re mad at me . . . but—”
Macky tried to sound pleasant. “That’s correct.”
“Don’t take it out on her. Just come on home and take a gun and kill me, shoot me in the head, put me out of my misery.”
“Thank you, I’ll be sure and do that. Good-bye, Mrs. Mud.”
Macky wound up buying two home-owner policies, one for them and one for Aunt Elner.
Small-Town Living, February 1953
If a stranger walked down the street past the barbershop in Elmwood Springs on Saturday afternoon and glanced in, he would see a group of middle-aged, gray-haired men sitting around chewing the fat. But if you were one of the men inside you would see six friends you had grown up with, not old men. Doc didn’t see the wrinkles on Glenn Warren’s face or notice that his neck had turned red and sagged with age or the wide girth straining his suspenders to the breaking point. He saw a skinny boy of seven with lively eyes. They were fixed in one another’s eyes as the boys they used to be. When Doc looked at sixty-eight-year-old Merle he saw the blond boy of ten he used to go swimming with. And to all of them, the balding man in the short sleeves with the little potbelly was still the boy who scored the winning touchdown that won the county championship. There wasn’t a secret among them. They knew one another’s families as well as they knew one another. Their wives, now plump gray matrons in comfortable shoes, they still saw as the pretty dimpled girls of eight or twelve that they had once had crushes on. Since they’d all grown up together, they’d never had to wonder who they were; it was clearly reflected in one another’s eyes. They never questioned friendship; it was just there, like it had been when they were children. They had all been at one another’s weddings. They’d shared in all the sadness and happiness of one another’s lives. It would never occur to them to be lonely. They would never know what it was like to be without friends. They would never have to wander from town to town, looking for a place to be; they had always had a place to come home to, a place where they belonged and where they were welcome. None of these men would ever be rich but they would never be cold or go hungry or be without a friend. They knew if one died the others would quietly step in and their children would be raised and their wives would be cared for; it was unspoken. They had a bond. Small-town people usually take these things for granted. As a certain young man named Bobby Smith was to find out for himself that year.