sort of thinkin’ brings us right back to you-know-who and his whole hardnosed brood!”
“Right! Exactly!”
The man in the hat slammed the table again. “A shame!”
“And as much as I personally like an’ admire Hank and his folks—Christ, didn’t we grow up together?—I for one am of the opinion that right there is where our issue is, ifn you got to aim a gun someplace—right out there at that house, in my opinion.”
“Amen, brother.”
“Goddam right amen! Now you all look .” Startled again by the violence of this order, Teddy raises his eyes. “Ifn you got to point a finger, then right that way is the way you point it!”
Looking through the glass he is polishing, Teddy sees the finger spring thrusting from the greasy, black-fuzzed fist.
“Right out at that goddamned house!”
... the jukebox whirs, bubbles, pulsing color. The electric screen buzzes. The men breathe softly together. The finger, a knuckled iron rod there in the slanting late-afternoon sun, swings slowly to fix like a compass needle. The house. Brute, monolithic structure, thick now with the light of coming dawn and noisy already with the preparations for breakfast . . .
“Yeah, you may be right, Henderson.”
“Damn right I’m right! If you want my considered opinion, there’s where your trouble is!”
Lights and shouts pouring from the kitchen window; laughter, curses. “Wake it an’ shake it, boys. The ol’ man’s already out ahead of ya, old an’ crippled as he is.” And the ringing smell of frying sausages. This is Hank’s bell. This is the way he likes it. This is Hank’s bell ringing.
And from behind his bar, standing out of the sun, Teddy watches the men and listens to their logic and is secretly certain that the trouble is not financial—just now, during that idiotic discussion on the lack of working capital, he’d brought in close to twelve dollars, and in broad daylight —and also seriously doubts that it could all be laid at the doorstep of that Stamper house. No, it is another trouble. In his considered opinion . . .
“Say, by the way, Henderson, your mentioning Floyd brings to mind: I haven’t seen him in a good day or so.”
West of the house, in her shack on the mudflats, Indian Jenny rises from her cot and dons a rose-red dress turned mudflat brown, and begins to wonder whom to blame for the sorry state of her life and why can’t she ever find her goddam Saint Christopher medal? South, Jonathan Bailey Draeger watches the road ahead for a place to spend the night before continuing on to Oregon. East, a postman tries to interpret the penciled scrawl of a threepenny postcard’s address and almost gives up . . .
“Yeah, where is Evenwrite?”
“Up north, in Portland. Tryin’ to get the goods once an’ for all on this very subject we been discussing, by God . . .”
The fist closes, but the finger still points. The old house hunches over breakfast, still noisy and bustly, and ignorant of the fingers beginning to swing from all around the country in a polarization of blame, beginning to converge like points on a constricting circle. . . .
Up North, in Portland, Floyd Evenwrite sat like a rubber toy in a forty-dollar suit, stiff and inscrutable and gas-filled. He had just finished plowing laboriously through a pile of yellow paper. The papers, once neat and crisp, lay on the table in front of him like a pile of limp fallen leaves. You could see the sweat on the papers. His hands always sweated a lot when he used them for anything besides manual labor. Matter of fact, he couldn’t remember for sure that they used to sweat at all. And now, as he rubbed his forehead and smallish red nose, they barely felt like his own. They felt naked, and nervous, and like somebody else’s hands. No calluses was how come. Funny. You wouldn’t think a man could get so attached to something like calluses, would you? Maybe they’re like cork boots; with corks it don’t make no matter how long since you quit
“Right! Exactly!”
The man in the hat slammed the table again. “A shame!”
“And as much as I personally like an’ admire Hank and his folks—Christ, didn’t we grow up together?—I for one am of the opinion that right there is where our issue is, ifn you got to aim a gun someplace—right out there at that house, in my opinion.”
“Amen, brother.”
“Goddam right amen! Now you all look .” Startled again by the violence of this order, Teddy raises his eyes. “Ifn you got to point a finger, then right that way is the way you point it!”
Looking through the glass he is polishing, Teddy sees the finger spring thrusting from the greasy, black-fuzzed fist.
“Right out at that goddamned house!”
... the jukebox whirs, bubbles, pulsing color. The electric screen buzzes. The men breathe softly together. The finger, a knuckled iron rod there in the slanting late-afternoon sun, swings slowly to fix like a compass needle. The house. Brute, monolithic structure, thick now with the light of coming dawn and noisy already with the preparations for breakfast . . .
“Yeah, you may be right, Henderson.”
“Damn right I’m right! If you want my considered opinion, there’s where your trouble is!”
Lights and shouts pouring from the kitchen window; laughter, curses. “Wake it an’ shake it, boys. The ol’ man’s already out ahead of ya, old an’ crippled as he is.” And the ringing smell of frying sausages. This is Hank’s bell. This is the way he likes it. This is Hank’s bell ringing.
And from behind his bar, standing out of the sun, Teddy watches the men and listens to their logic and is secretly certain that the trouble is not financial—just now, during that idiotic discussion on the lack of working capital, he’d brought in close to twelve dollars, and in broad daylight —and also seriously doubts that it could all be laid at the doorstep of that Stamper house. No, it is another trouble. In his considered opinion . . .
“Say, by the way, Henderson, your mentioning Floyd brings to mind: I haven’t seen him in a good day or so.”
West of the house, in her shack on the mudflats, Indian Jenny rises from her cot and dons a rose-red dress turned mudflat brown, and begins to wonder whom to blame for the sorry state of her life and why can’t she ever find her goddam Saint Christopher medal? South, Jonathan Bailey Draeger watches the road ahead for a place to spend the night before continuing on to Oregon. East, a postman tries to interpret the penciled scrawl of a threepenny postcard’s address and almost gives up . . .
“Yeah, where is Evenwrite?”
“Up north, in Portland. Tryin’ to get the goods once an’ for all on this very subject we been discussing, by God . . .”
The fist closes, but the finger still points. The old house hunches over breakfast, still noisy and bustly, and ignorant of the fingers beginning to swing from all around the country in a polarization of blame, beginning to converge like points on a constricting circle. . . .
Up North, in Portland, Floyd Evenwrite sat like a rubber toy in a forty-dollar suit, stiff and inscrutable and gas-filled. He had just finished plowing laboriously through a pile of yellow paper. The papers, once neat and crisp, lay on the table in front of him like a pile of limp fallen leaves. You could see the sweat on the papers. His hands always sweated a lot when he used them for anything besides manual labor. Matter of fact, he couldn’t remember for sure that they used to sweat at all. And now, as he rubbed his forehead and smallish red nose, they barely felt like his own. They felt naked, and nervous, and like somebody else’s hands. No calluses was how come. Funny. You wouldn’t think a man could get so attached to something like calluses, would you? Maybe they’re like cork boots; with corks it don’t make no matter how long since you quit
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