“Well, I guess that’s better than I deserve.”
“The old families must stick together.”
“Is Marullo part of the group?”
“Certainly not. He goes his own way with his own crowd.”
“They do pretty well, don’t they?”
“Better than I think is healthy. I don’t like to see these foreigners creeping in.”
“And July seventh is the sound-off.”
“Did I say that?”
“No, I guess I just imagined it.”
“You must have.”
And with that Mary came back from the wallpaper. We did our courteous duties and walked slowly toward home.
“They just couldn’t have been nicer. What did he say?”
“Same old thing. I should use your money to get a start, and I won’t do it.”
“I know you’re thinking of me, dear. But I say if you don’t take his advice you’re a fool.”
“I don’t like it, Mary. Suppose he’s wrong. You’d be without protection.”
“I tell you this, Ethan, if you don’t do it, I’ll take the money and hand it over to him. I promise you I will.”
“Let me think about it. I don’t want to involve you in business.”
“You don’t have to. That money’s in a joint account. You know what the fortune said.”
“Oh, Lord—the fortune again.”
“Well, I believe it.”
“If I lost your money, you’d hate me.”
“I wouldn’t. You are my fortune! That’s what Margie said.”
“What Margie said, is in my head, in letters red, until I’m dead.”
“Don’t make a joke.”
“Maybe I’m not. Don’t let fortune spoil the sweetness of our failure.”
“I don’t see how a little money could spoil anything. Not a lot of money—just enough.” I didn’t answer. “Well—do you?”
I said, “O prince’s daughter, there is no such thing as just enough money. Only two measures: No Money and Not Enough Money.”
“Why, that’s not true.”
“That is true. Remember the Texas billionaire who died recently?He lived in a hotel room and out of a suitcase. He left no will, no heirs, but he didn’t have enough money. The more you have, the less enough it is.”
She said sarcastically, “I suppose you find it sinful for me to want new living-room curtains and a water heater big enough so four people can bathe the same day and I can wash dishes too.”
“I was not reporting on sin, you juggins. I was stating a fact, a law of nature.”
“You seem to have no respect for human nature.”
“Not human nature, my Mary—nature. Squirrels bank ten times as many hickory nuts as they can ever use. The pocket gopher, with a stomach full to bursting, still loads his cheeks like sacks. And how much of the honey the clever bees collect do the clever bees eat?”
When Mary is confused or perplexed, she spurts anger the way an octopus spurts ink, and hides in the dark cloud of it.
“You make me sick,” she said. “You can’t let anyone have a little happiness.”
“My darling, it isn’t that. It’s a despairing unhappiness I’m afraid of, the panic money brings, the protectiveness and the envy.”
She must have been unconsciously fearful of the same thing. She struck at me, probed for a hurting place, and found it and twisted the jagged words. “Here’s a grocery clerk without a bean worried about how bad it will be when he’s rich. You act as though you could pick up a fortune any time you want to.”
“I think I can.”
“How?”
“That’s the worry.”
“You don’t know how or you’d have done it before. You’re just bluffing. You always bluff.”
The intent to wound raises rage. I could feel the fever rise in me. Ugly, desperate words moved up like venom. I felt a sour hatefulness.
Mary said, “Look! There it goes! Did you see it?”
“Where? What?”
“Went right past the tree there and into our yard.”
“What was it, Mary? Tell me! What did you see?”
In the dusk I saw her smile, that incredible female smile. It is called wisdom but it isn’t that but rather an understanding that makes wisdom unnecessary.
“You didn’t see anything, Mary.”
“I saw a quarrel—but it got away.”
I put my arm about her and turned her. “Let’s go around the block before we go in.”
We strolled in the tunnel of the night and we didn’t speak again, or need to.
Chapter eight
As a child I hunted and killed small creatures with energy and joy. Rabbits and squirrels, small birds, and later ducks and wild geese came crashing down, rumpled distortions of bone and blood and fur and feathers. There was a savage creativeness about it without hatred or rancor or guilt. The war retired my appetite for destruction; perhaps I was like a child overindulged in sweets. A shotgun’s blast was no longer a shout of fierce happiness.
In this first spring a bouncing pair of rabbits paid daily visits to our garden. They loved best my Mary’s carnations, ate them down to raw crowns.
“You’ll have to get rid of them,” Mary said.
I brought out my 12-bore, sticky with grease, and found some old thickened shells with number five shot. In the evening I sat on the back steps and when the rabbits were in line I blasted both of them with one shot. Then I buried the furry ruins under the big lilac and I was miserable in the stomach.
It was simply that I had grown unused to killing things. A man can get used to anything. Slaughtering or undertaking or even execution; rack and pincers must be just a job when one gets used to it.
When the children had gone to bed I said, “I’m going out for a while.”
Mary didn’t ask where or why, as she would have a few days ago. “Shall you be late?”
“No, not late.”
“I won’t wait up, I’m sleepy,” she said. And it seemed that, having accepted a direction, she was farther along than I. I still had the rabbit misery. Perhaps it is natural for a man who has destroyed something to try to restore a balance by creating something. But was that my impulse?
I fumbled my way into the stinking kennel where Danny Taylor lived. A lighted candle burned in a saucer beside his Army cot.
Danny was in bad shape, blue and gaunt and sick. His skin had a pewter sheen. It was hard not to be sick at the smell of the dirty place and the dirty man, under a filthy comforter. His eyes were open and glazed. I expected him to babble in delirium. It was a shock when he spoke clearly and in the tone and manner of Danny Taylor.
“What do you want here, Eth?”
“I want to help you.”
“You know better than that.”
“You’re sick.”
“Think I don’t know it? I know it better than anyone.” He groped behind his cot and brought out a bottle of Old Forester one-third full. “Have a shot?”
“No, Danny. That’s expensive whisky.”
“I have friends.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“That’s none of your business, Eth.” He took a drink and kept it down, but for a moment it was not easy. And then his color came back. He laughed. “My friend wanted to talk business but I fooled him. I passed out before he could get it said. He didn’t know how little it takes. Do you want to talk business, Eth? ’Cause I can pass out again quick.”
“Do you have any feeling about me, Danny? Any trust? Any—well, feeling?”
“Sure I do, but when it comes right down to it I am a drunk, and a drunk feels strongest about liquor.”
“If I could raise the money, would you go for a cure?”