Homer was looking the other way, at the house, watching the parlor window. He cocked his head to one side when someone laughed. The four short sounds, ha-ha and again ha-ha, distinct musical notes, were made by the dwarf.
“You could learn from him,” Tod said.
“What?” Homer asked, turning to look at him.
“Let it go.”
His impatience both hurt and puzzled Homer. He saw that and motioned for him to sit down, this time emphatically.
Homer obeyed. He did a poor job of squatting and hurt himself. He sat nursing his knee.
“What is it?” Tod finally said, making an attempt to be kind.
“Nothing, Tod, nothing.”
He was grateful and increased his smile. Tod couldn’t help seeing all its annoying attributes, resignation, kindliness, and humility. They sat quietly, Homer with his heavy shoulders hunched and the sweet grin on his face, Tod frowning, his back pressed hard against the palm tree. In the house the radio was playing and its blare filled the street. They sat for a long time without speaking. Several times Homer started to tell Tod something but he didn’t seem able to get the words out. Tod refused to help him with a question.
His big hands left his lap, where they had been playing “here’s the church and here the steeple,” and hid in his armpits. They remained there for a moment, then slid under his thighs. A moment later they were back in his lap. The right hand cracked the joints of the left, one by one, then the left did the same service for the right. They seemed easier for a moment, but not for long. They started “here’s the church” again, going through the entire performance and ending with the joint manipulation as before. He started a third time, but catching Tod’s eyes, he stopped and trapped his hands between his knees.
It was the most complicated tic Tod had ever seen. What made it particularly horrible was its precision. It wasn’t pantomime, as he had first thought, but manual ballet.
When Tod saw the hands start to crawl out again, he exploded.
“For Christ’s sake!”
The hands struggled to get free, but Homer clamped his knees shut and held them.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Oh, all right.”
“But I can’t help it, Tod. I have to do it three times.”
“Okay with me.”
He turned his back on him.
Faye started to sing and her voice poured into the street
“Dreamed about a reefer five feet long
Not too mild and not too strong,
You’ll be high, but not for long,
If you’re a viper-a vi-paah.”
Instead of her usual swing delivery, she was using a lugubrious one, wailing the tune as though it were a dirge. At the end of every stanza, she shifted to an added minor.
“I’m the queen of everything,
Gotta be high before I can swing,
Light a tea and let it be,
If you’re a viper-a vi-paah.”
“She sings very pretty,” Homer said.
“She’s drunk.”
“I don’t know what to do, Tod,” Homer complained. “She’s drinking an awful lot lately. It’s that Earle. We used to have a lot of fun before be came, but now we don’t have any fun any more since he started to hang around.”
“Why don’t you get rid of him?”
“I was thinking about what you said about the license to keep chickens.”
Tod understood what he wanted.
“I’ll report them to the Board of Health tomorrow.” Homer thanked him, then insisted on explaining in detail why he couldn’t do it himself.391 “But that’ll only get rid of the Mexican,” Tod said. “You’ll have to throw Earle out yourself.”
“Maybe he’ll go with his friend?”
Tod knew that Homer was begging him to agree so that he could go on hoping, but he refused.
“Not a chance. You’ll have to throw him out”
Homer accepted this with his brave, sweet smile. “Maybe…”
“Tell Faye to do it,” Tod said.
“Oh, I can’t”
“Why the hell not? It’s your house.”
“Don’t be mad at me, Toddle.”
“All right, Homie, I’m not mad at you.”
Faye’s voice came through the open window.
“And when your throat gets dry,
You know you’re high,
If you’re a viper.”
The others harmonized on the last word, repeating it. “Vi-paah…”
“Toddle,” Homer began, “if…”
“Stop calling me Toddle, for Christ’s sake!”
Homer didn’t understand. He took Tod’s hand.
“I didn’t mean nothing. Back home we call…”
Tod couldn’t stand his trembling signals of affection. He tore free with a jerk.
“Oh, but, Toddle, I…”
“She’s a whore!”
He heard Homer grunt, then heard his knees creak as he struggled to his feet.
Faye’s voice came pouring through the window, a reedy wail that broke in the middle with a husky catch.
“High, high, high, high, when you’re high,
Everything is dandy,
Truck on down to the candy store,
Bust your conk on peppermint candy!
Then you know your body’s sent,
Don’t care if you don’t pay rent,
Sky is high and so am I,
If you’re a viper-a vi-paah.”
23
When Tod went back into the house, he found Earle, Abe Kusich and Claude standing together in a tight group, watching Faye dance with Miguel. She and the Mexican were doing a slow tango to music from the phonograph. He held her very tight, one of his legs thrust between hers, and they swayed together in long spirals that broke rhythmically at the top of each curve into a dip. All the buttons on her lounging pajamas were open and the arm he had around her waist was inside her clothes.
Tod stood watching the dancers from the doorway for a moment, then went to a little table on which the whiskey bottle was. He poured himself a quarter of a tumblerful, tossed it off, then poured another drink. Carrying the glass, he went over to Claude and the others. They paid no attention to him; their heads moved only to follow the dancers, like the gallery at a tennis match.
“Did you see Homer?” Tod asked, touching Claude’s arm. Claude didn’t turn, but the dwarf did. He spoke as though hypnotized. “What a quiff! What a quiff!”
Tod left them and went to look for Homer. He wasn’t in the kitchen, so he tried the bedrooms. One of them was locked. He knocked lightly, waited, then repeated the knock. There was no answer, but he thought he heard someone move. He looked through the keyhole. The room was pitch dark. “Homer,” he called softly.
He heard the bed creak, then Homer replied.
“Who is it?”
“It’s me-Toddie.”
He used the diminutive with perfect seriousness. “Go away, please,” Homer said.
“Let me in for a minute. I want to explain something.”
“No,” Homer said, “go away, please.”
Tod went back to the living room. The phonograph record had been changed to a fox-trot and Earle was now dancing with Faye. He had both his arms around her in a bear hug and they were stumbling all over the room, bumping into the walls and furniture. Faye, her head thrown back, was laughing wildly. Earle had both eyes shut tight.
Miguel and Claude were also laughing, but not the dwarf. He stood with his fists clenched and his chin stuck out. When he couldn’t stand any more of it, he ran after the dancers to cut in. He caught Earle by the seat of his trousers.
“Le’me dance,” he barked.
Earle turned his head, looking down at the dwarf from over his shoulder.
“Git! G’wan, git!”
Faye and Earle had come to a halt with their arms around each other. When the dwarf lowered his head like a goat and tried to push between them, she reached down and tweaked his nose.