It was Sunday morning. Customers lolled at the tables and there were the smell of tobacco and the rustle of newspaper.
Some men in a corner booth shot dice, but the game was a quiet one.
‘Where’s Singer?’ Biff asked. ‘Won’t you be going up to his place this morning?’
Blount’s face turned dark and sullen. He jerked his head forward. Had they quarreled--but how could a dummy quarrel? No, for this had happened before. Blount hung around sometimes and acted as though he were having an argument with himself. But pretty soon he would go--he always did--and the two of them would come in together, Blount talking.
‘You live a fine life. Just standing behind a cash register. Just standing with your hand open.’
Biff did not take offense. He leaned his weight on his elbows and narrowed his eyes. ‘Let’s me and you have a serious talk.
What is it you want anyway?’
Blount smacked his hands down on the counter. They were warm and meaty and rough. ‘Beer. And one of them little packages of cheese crackers with peanut butter in the inside.’
‘That’s not what I meant,’ Biff said. ‘But well come around to it later.’
The man was a puzzle. He was always changing. He still drank like a crazy fish, but liquor did not drag him down as it did some men. The rims of his eyes were often red, and he had a nervous trick of looking back startled over his shoulder. His head was heavy and huge on his thin neck. He was the sort of fellow that kids laughed at and dogs wanted to bite. Yet when he was laughed at it cut him to the quick--he got rough and loud like a sort of clown. And he was always suspecting that somebody was laughing. Biff shook his head thoughtfully. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘What makes you stick with that show? You can find something better than that. I could give you a part-time job here.’
‘Christamighty! I wouldn’t park myself behind that cash box if you was to give me the whole damn place, lock, stock, and barrel.’There he was. It was irritating. He could never have friends or even get along with people. Talk sense,’ Biff said. ‘Be serious.’ A customer had come up with his check and he made change. The place was still quiet. Blount was restless. Biff felt him drawing away. He wanted to hold him. He reached for two A-1 cigars on the shelf behind the counter and offered Blount a smoke. Warily his mind dismissed one question after another, and then finally he asked: ‘If you could choose the time in history you could have lived, what era would you choose? ‘ Blount licked his mustache with his broad, wet tongue. ‘If you had to choose between being a stiff and never asking another question, which would you take? ‘ ‘Sure enough,’ Biff insisted. ‘Think it over.’ He cocked his head to one side and peered down over his long nose. This was a matter he liked to hear others talk about. Ancient Greece was his. Walking in sandals on the edge of the blue Aegean. The loose robes girdled at the waist. Children. The marble baths and the contemplations in the temples. ‘Maybe with the Incas. In Peru.’ Biff’s eyes scanned over him, stripping him naked. He saw Blount burned a rich, red brown by the sun, his face smooth and hairless, with a bracelet of gold and precious stones on his forearm. When he closed his eyes the man was a good Inca. But when he looked at him again the picture fell away. It was the nervous mustache that did not belong to his face, the way he jerked his shoulder, the Adam’s apple on his thin neck, the bagginess of his trousers. And it was more than that. ‘Or maybe around 1775.’
‘That was a good time to be living,’ Biff agreed. Blount shuffled his feet self-consciously. His face was rough and unhappy. He was ready to leave. Biff was alert to detain him. ‘Tell me--why did you ever come to this town anyway? ‘ He knew immediately that the question had not been a politic one and he was disappointed with himself. Yet it was queer how the man could land up in a place like this.’ It’s the God’s truth I don’t know.’ They stood quietly for a moment, both leaning on the counter. The game of dice in the corner was finished. The first dinner order, a Long Island duck special, had been served to the fellow who managed the A. and P. store. The radio was turned halfway between a church sermon and a swing band. Blount leaned over suddenly and smelled Biff’s face. ‘Perfume? ‘ ‘Shaving lotion,’ Biff said composedly. He could not keep Blount longer. The fellow was ready to go. He would come in with Singer later. It was always like this. He wanted to draw Blount out completely so that he could understand certain questions concerning him. But Blount would never really talk--only to the mute. It was a most peculiar thing. ‘Thanks for the cigar,’ Blount said. ‘See you later.’
‘So long.’ Biff watched Blount walk to the door with his rolling, sailor-like gait. Then he took up the duties before him. He looked over the display in the window. The day’s menu had been pasted on the glass and a special dinner with all the trimmings was laid out to attract customers. It looked bad. Right nasty. The gravy from the duck had run into the cranberry sauce and a fly, was stuck in the dessert.
‘Hey, Louis!’ he called. ‘Take this stuff out of the window. And bring me that red pottery bowl and some fruit.’ He arranged the fruits with an eye for color and design. At last the decoration pleased him. He visited the kitchen and had a talk with the cook. He lifted the lids of the pots and sniffed the food inside, but without heart for the matter. Alice always had done this part. He disliked it. His nose sharpened when he saw the greasy sink with its scum of food bits at the bottom. He wrote down the menus and the orders for the next day. He was glad to leave the kitchen and take his stand by the cash register again. Lucile and Baby came for Sunday dinner. The little Md was not so good now. The bandage was still on her head and the doctor said it could not come off until next month. The binding of gauze in place of the yellow curls made her head look naked.
‘Say hello to Uncle Biff, Hon,’ Lucile prompted. Baby bridled fretfully.
‘Hello to Unca Biff Hon,’ she gassed. She put up a struggle when Lucile tried to take off her Sunday coat.
‘Now you just behave yourself,’ Lucile kept saying. ‘You got to take it off or you’ll catch pneumonia when we go out again.. Now you just behave yourself.’
Biff took the situation in charge. He soothed Baby with a ball of candy gum and eased the coat from her shoulders. Her dress had lost its set in the struggle with Lucile. He straightened it so that the yoke was in line across her chest He retied her sash and crushed the bow to just the right shape with his fingers. Then he patted Baby on her little behind. ‘We got some strawberry ice cream today,’ he said.
‘Bartholomew, you’d make a mighty good mother.
‘Thanks,’ Biff said. ’s a compliment’ We just been to Sunday School and church. Baby, say the verse from the Bible you learned for your Uncle Biff.’
The kid hung back and pouted. ‘Jesus wept,’ she said finally. The scorn that she put in the two words made it sound like a terrible thing.
‘Want to see Louis?’ Biff asked. ‘He’s back in the kitchen.’
‘I wanna see Willie. I wanna hear me play the harp.’
‘Now, Baby, you’re just trying yourself,’ Lucile said impatiently. ‘You know good and well that Willie’s not here. Willie was sent off to the penitentiary.’
‘But Louis,’ Biff said. ‘He can play the harp, too. Go tell him to get the ice cream ready and play you a tune.’
Baby went toward the kitchen, dragging one heel on the floor.
Lucile laid her hat on the counter. There were tears in her eyes. ‘You know I always said this: If a child is kept clean and well cared for and pretty then that child will usually be sweet and smart. But if a child’s dirty and ugly then you can’t expect anything much. What I’m trying to get at is that Baby is so shamed over losing her hair and that bandage on her head that it just seems like it makes her cut the buck all the time. She won’t practice her elocution--she won’t do a thing. She feels so bad I just can’t manage her.’
‘If you’d quit picking with her so much she’d be all right.’