Orrie's Story by Thomas Berger Page A

water. Think about it, Orrie!”
    â€œQuiet down, will you please? Look, you’re really going to have to —”
    â€œShe’s already trying to get his Army insurance,” Ellie cried. “I heard her on the phone. Daddy was gone one day!”
    â€œI guess she really needs the money. He’s got to be buried, you know. She never has had enough under normal circumstances.” Orrie always felt guilty when he thought about how his mother had to struggle to make ends meet on the small family allowance paid by the Army. He had done his best to help out, ever since he became old enough to caddy, but she had generously insisted he keep most of his earnings for college, no doubt foreseeing that even with a scholarship he would have extra costs to meet, and certainly he did, for his job as dining-room waiter covered only standard room and board, not a doughnut and coffee in the evening or a hotdog at the Saturday football game which he felt obliged to attend with the other freshmen, not to mention dates with girls, of which he however was yet to have the first.
    â€œShe’s got enough,” Ellie said hatefully. “What about Uncle Erie?”
    Orrie too found that name distasteful, but he avoided as much as possible bringing it to mind. “All right, maybe she’s borrowed a little, but only when —”
    Ellie interrupted. “It’s not exactly borrowing, is it? It’s payment for service rendered. Don’t you even know that? She’s a prosti—”
    Orrie cut her off. “I’m warning you, Ellie. I’ll have to —”
    â€œDo what?” Her face had gone even whiter, with defiance. “Hit me?”
    He was embarrassed. “Come on, don’t talk that way.”
    â€œI’m only waiting for the funeral,” said Ellie. “And then I’m getting out of here for good.”
    She was really in a bad way, but he did not know what to do about her. “Would you be satisfied if I talked to the lifesaving guys? I guess I could also see the doctor who signed the death certificate. But wouldn’t these be the very people who would already have said something if anything looked fishy?”
    â€œNo!” Ellie said with heat. “They wouldn’t notice. They wouldn’t have any reason to suspect those two. I’m the only person in the world who knows about them. Well, maybe Gena does, if she’s alive.”
    Gena was another subject he avoided thinking about. That she had never got in touch after leaving did not necessarily mean she had come to an unfortunate end. It was reasonable to assume that she had not been a big success, either. He had read that far and away most of the young girls who reached Hollywood each year never got close to being in a movie and ended up usually as car hops, usherettes, and so on, eventually returning home. Gena might be incommunicado because she was humiliated by the failure of her dream, but it was still possible she would come walking in the door one day.
    â€œGena hardly would be an authority on this matter,” he said now, and held his head at an angle as if he were miffed; “What about me? I was there until only a few weeks ago.”
    Ellie grimaced. “You don’t know anything. You’re a boy.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    She lowered her eyes. “You better get back to your friend. It’s not right to make him wait so long.”
    Orrie now took the opposing argument. “It hasn’t been that long.” But he walked over to Paul. “We’re having this complicated family discussion,” he said. “She’s pretty upset. She was closer to my dad than I was.”
    â€œDon’t worry about me,” said Paul. He nodded at the playground. “If you’re going to be a while, maybe I’ll go over there and shoot baskets with those guys.” Two high-school boys were beneath the netless basket