Making out! I hadn’t heard anyone say that since about 1980, and I turned my head to the screen. But all that was going on there was digging, and back in our seats Susan was kissing my neck. And so I turned back to her, and the credits rolled.
But in the street, nothing. We had gone to the rest rooms to unrumple, but something must have happened there — perhaps the sight of ourselves, just beginning our fourth decades, wan and haggard in the unflattering fluorescent light — to pluck us out of our respective spells. We simpered, embarrassed, at one another. The sun had finally come out, just in time to start setting. I had homework to do.
Still, we walked all the way downtown, saying little, not touching. It was a good walk, a necessary walk, as the last remnants of alcohol rose to my skin and evaporated into the city air. When we got to the Caddy we stood facing each other, smiling politely and not looking each other directly in the eyes. The day had lost almost all its light.
“So,” I said.
“So,” she said.
I began to lean forward, just a little, and she did too. Then someone down the street yelled and we turned our heads to see, but there was nothing. And then my hand was on the door handle and Susan was a step farther away, and so that would be all.
“So call me,” she said, then corrected herself: “I’ll call you. Whenever I know something. About the conference.”
“And Ray Burn.”
“Yeah, sure.” She smiled, I smiled.
“Thanks,” I said. “I had a great day.” Though I wasn’t sure if that was true. Great? Different. Unexpected.
“Yeah?”
“Sure,” I said.
Her face darkened, just a little. Had I not sounded convincing enough? I was embarrassed and looked away.
“Well, until then,” she said.
“Okay, great.” I opened the car door and got in. She walked off. And I was suddenly saying, “Susan?”
“Yes?”
She half-turned, her face full of something: hope, fear, humiliation? It was red, anyway. No matter what I said, it would be wrong. I said, “Thanks again.”
A moment of silence. Then, “No problem,” and she was gone.
All the way home, I half-listened to talk radio, and thought incessantly of her breast’s gentle pressure against the crook of my arm.
* * *
Pierce was asleep, but the kitchen counter had been cleared entirely of dishes and food residue and wiped clean. And sitting in the middle of it, like a surprise birthday gift or suicide note, was the safe-deposit box key. No explanation, though none was needed. Tomorrow he would go, I supposed, to the Pines, and I would be going to the bank.
* * *
There were three banks in Riverbank — that is, Mixville — and only two of them were open Saturday mornings. Of the open ones, I remembered having a childhood passbook savings account at Riverbank First National, and knew that Riverbank National Bank and Trust was closer, right out on Main Street. I went to RNBT first. Downtown was uncrowded, save for a small, just-awakened crowd milling around the bakery. I stopped there myself and bought a scone, perfectly serviceable and still warm.
RNBT was in the process of becoming MNBT. They had had a vinyl sign printed up with the new town name on it, and this hung from ropes over the illuminated sign; the lettering on the door had already been changed. I was impressed and abashed.
When I showed the safety deposit teller the key, she assured me that it was indeed one of theirs, and passed me a stack of forms. I had to sign in, as usual, but there were some other hoops, relating to my father’s death, that had to be jumped through.
“I’m not actually in charge of his money,” I said. “I don’t have power of attorney or anything.”
“Where did you get this key?” she said.
“It was left to my brother Pierce.”
She winced, as if she had some dire connection to Pierce I didn’t, and couldn’t, understand. “And why isn’t he here himself?”
“He doesn’t want to be the one to look.”
“Can’t you bring him in here with you? Then he could stand outside.”
I looked down at the half-eaten scone in my hand. “He doesn’t…like banks,” I said.
“Hmm.” She asked me for my driver’s license and social security card. She asked me what my father’s mother’s maiden name was and made me verify his address. Then I signed the forms and she opened the gate. “But keep that out of here,” she said, pointing at the scone. I set it in front of a closed teller station and followed her in.
She made me wait outside the vault while she pulled the box from it, then led me to a cramped booth containing a small desk, a pen on a chain and a reading lamp with a green glass shade. She set the box on the desk. “Let me know when you’re through,” she said, and clickety-clacked back to her window.
It was a long, narrow box, gray with sharp corners. The lid came up with a feeble creak. Inside was a small sheaf of papers and an envelope. I looked at the papers first: titles to the property and car, dental X-rays, birth certificates of Dad, Bitty and Pierce. Some low-denomination savings bonds, never cashed in and possibly forgotten.
I put these things aside and gingerly tore open the envelope. The paper was bright white, not aged in the slightest. Inside there was only another key, this one to a door lock or padlock. There was nothing else. I pulled the key out. It had the number 134 etched into one side, and on the other was a yellow sticker, half of which was rubbed mostly away by a succession of rough fingers. Only a few words were visible:
orage
lphia, PA
I looked again into the envelope: surely something else was in there. But there was no explanation, no note. I rifled through the papers, nothing. I pocketed the key, crumpled the envelope up and dropped it into the wastebasket. Then I closed the box and left the room.
“I’m done,” I told the teller. She gave me a look indicating that she was pleased to hear it. She disappeared into the vault with the box and returned with the key. Meanwhile I discovered that my scone had been disposed of. There were still a couple of crumbs there, standing out pale against the black marble counter where it had been sitting.
* * *
My assignment for the weekend was to come up with twenty-five strip-worthy gags. These would form the basis of my work for the next month and a half. During the last two weeks of my tutelage we would prepare the six dailies and one Sunday that would constitute my submission to Burn Features Syndicate, would decide my fate as a rich and goofy pop artist or pretentious loser living with his brother. I wasn’t sure, considering the two, which suited me better. By that evening I was forced to confront the fact that neither was particularly suitable, and that despite my doubts I had no other conceivable options. I wanted to sit around and discuss this with somebody, but I couldn’t see calling Susan so late at night, and incidentally making a fool of myself. So I sat quietly, fighting off sleep, and worked on the gags.
I had decided on a system while returning from the bank, and stopped in the mini-mart for a stack of 3x5 note cards, the kind without lines. I had this idea that lines would make the jokes seem less funny, a task they would likely need no help accomplishing. At home, I dug from the hall closet an old typewriter, a black war-era Smith-Corona in a battered black case that my father had used briefly in his stint as a newspaperman, and hauled it onto the kitchen counter. I sat on a wooden bar stool and rolled in card after card, tapping out every stupid gag I could think up. I didn’t worry too much about their quality, only the redundant mechanics of their production: off the stack, into the machine, think up the joke, type it out, out of the machine, onto the stack. By the time I gave up I had about forty, most of them worthless. Under the gray fluorescent kitchen light, the only one burning in the house, I thumbed through the pile. Calendar says Jan 1, Lindy says to Bitty Time to make your New Year’s revolution. Dog curled on Dot’s lap, Timmy saying It’s Mommy’s laptop! Mailman coming up walk, Bobby looking out window says If he was a girl would he be a femailman?