Evergreen

by Belva Plain

  “So the food we eat, the clothes I have on, everything that touches Eric, comes from this dirt!” Her anger was cold and controlled. “Why did you lie to me, Maury? Why did you do such a thing?”

  He began to tremble, not only because of her, but also because if he had stayed late today, they would have caught him too. Somebody must have slipped up, perhaps a new cop in the district.

  “I was ashamed. I knew what you would think. So I took the easy way of lying and I shouldn’t have.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “What can I do?”

  “You can march over there in the morning and tell them you aren’t coming back. Or no, you can call him up now, whoever runs the gang,” she said scornfully, “and tell him you’re not coming back. That’s what you can do!”

  “Then what? You think I haven’t tried to see whether there was anything else? Yes, I found a job, one job, at the A & P for twenty-two dollars a week!”

  “Well, take it!”

  “Can we live on that? Milk for the baby, the pediatrician—can we? And now we’ve become used to more—”

  “Do you think it was worth it? Oh, I should have guessed there was something odd! A boss sending gifts like that when Eric was born, and a wristwatch for me at Christmas. How naïve I am! Do you know what? I feel dirty in these clothes, I could take this watch and throw it into the garbage pail!”

  He let her talk; he couldn’t think of anything to say. She began to cry. “But most of all, most of all, Maury, what might have happened to you! Suppose it had been you instead of that Scorzio! To spend years of your life in jail, a man like you, people like us, ruined, ruined—”

  “He won’t spend years of his life, not even a night. He’ll be out on bail, he probably is already. And in a few weeks the charge will be dropped for lack of evidence.”

  She stared. “You mean, somebody will be paid off—a judge, or somebody.”

  “Exactly. That’s the way it works.”

  “You think that’s right?”

  “Of course I don’t think it’s right. If I could change it I would, and as soon as I can get away from it I will. But in the meantime—”

  “You’re going back?”

  “In the meantime I’m going back.”

  The telephone rang. He handed her the baby. “That’ll be for me, telling me the new address for tomorrow.”

  He never knew what he would find when he got home. Agatha might be on the floor with Eric and a pile of blocks. Now that Eric was walking, the floor was always strewn with his toys, making a disorder which pleased Maury, a natural, cheerful disorder. The sound of their two voices, the child’s and the mother’s, would ring into the hall before he got the door open. And there would be the fragrance of cooking, something spicy and foreign; he thought with amusement, Aggie has turned out to be a pretty good Greek cook. He might open the door on all that.

  Or else he might open it on a dark kitchen, a dim living room and Eric crying in the playpen with his diapers soaked. Agatha would be asleep on top of the bedspread. He never knew.

  He bought a book on alcoholism. It took him four days to muster courage enough to buy it. When he had unwrapped the book and placed it on the seat of his car he knew he had made the final admission to himself.

  Above all, the book advised, don’t lose your temper; it will accomplish nothing. More easily said than done! Yet he was being quite patient, he thought. Not that she was ever offensive, maudlin or nasty; she just merely began to feel hazy and fell asleep. But it was sick; he knew so little about it but he knew that much, and that people used alcohol to relieve their anxieties. Apparently his wife’s anxieties were too much for her.

  “Elena asked me today what kind of job you had,” she reported once. “I’m sure they suspect something. Even if there were women around here for me to make friends with I’d be afraid and ashamed.”

  Such heavy guilt he had, remembering the place where she had been born, the white houses, the old, old calm and dignity. And now this. And all his fault.

  While the key was still in the lock one evening he heard the delightful sound of crowing, and knew that the boy was in his high chair, spraying a mush of pureed carrots or spinach on his bib. He threw his coat on a chair and hurried into the kitchen. His sister Iris was feeding Eric.

  He stared. “Where’s Aggie?”

  “Nothing’s wrong! She was lying down when I got here. Had a little headache, that’s all. So I told her to stay there and I’d feed Eric.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Iris! Don’t cover up for her! She’s been drinking again and you know it.”

  “There,” Iris said, “all through! Let Auntie Iris wipe your mouth, and well have some peaches.”

  “Damn it,” Maury said. He beat his fists on his thighs. “Damn it to hell and back again.”

  “Don’t do that now. Get it out of your system later, Maury. You’re scaring Eric.”

  The child had turned his head away from the spoon to stare at Maury. He walked out of the room. He went to the bathroom. He walked to the living room window and looked out at nothing. He opened the bedroom door; it was dusk and he could not see Aggie’s face. She was huddled on the bed asleep, her knees drawn almost to her chin. Fetal position, he thought disgustedly, and walked closer. Her hand with the wedding ring lay open on the pillow. Something made him touch it to see whether she would stir, but she did not. He was furious, pitying and grieving. He wished he could make sense of all the things he was feeling.

  He went back into the kitchen. Iris had put the baby into the playpen, where, now that his stomach was full, he would be content for half an hour, at least.

  “There’s nothing in the refrigerator except a roasting chicken. I guess Aggie intended it for supper. But it’s already half past five.”

  “Make some scrambled eggs. I’m not hungry. I hope you aren’t.” He sounded gruff. He hadn’t meant to.

  “I’ll make a jelly omelet,” Iris said.

  “Anything.”

  They ate silently. Suddenly Maury realized how ungracious, how self-absorbed he was being. “You’ve just finished mid-terms, haven’t you? How did you do?” he inquired.

  “I did well,” she answered quietly. “And you don’t have to be sociable, Maury. I know you have a lot of trouble.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Aggie told me what you do for a living.”

  “She had no right to!”

  “Don’t be angry with her. She told me months ago. A person has to talk to somebody, you know.”

  “Well, am I doing anything so terrible?” he burst out. “She’s not used to things like that.”

  “And I am used to them?”

  “Of course not. Except that you seem able to stand it. You feel you have to. But she’s made differently and she can’t face it. That’s why she takes a drink, don’t you see?”

  “She doesn’t help herself that way. She doesn’t help us.”

  “I’m sure she knows that, and it makes her feel worse.”

  “Do you always understand so much about people?”

  She looked up quickly. “Are you being sarcastic?”

  “Iris! For God’s sake! I meant you understand so much, and you’re only seventeen.”

  “That’s funny. Most of the time I think I don’t understand very much at all.”

  He put his head in his hands. “I wish I could find a decent job but there isn’t anything. I’ve tried, believe me I have.”

  “I believe you.”

  “Tell me, do they know at home what I do?”

  “They found out. Not through me! Through Cousin Ruth. You know she has relatives who keep up with Wolf Harris. It seems all some people do is talk about other people.”

  “Did they have anything to say about it? The truth.”

  “Ma didn’t. She waited for Pa the way she always does. And he said it was a disgrace, a scandal.”

  “Then can he get me anything better?”

  “You never asked
him to.”

  “Would you, if you were in my place?”

  “Don’t make me take sides.”

  “Why doesn’t he call me? Answer that!”

  “He’s older, Maury. He is the father, after all,” Iris said quietly.

  Agatha was still asleep when Iris left. He ran the water for Eric’s bath and wondered how she was with the child while he was away. She could be so delightful! She loved to sing, and often he had heard her singing while taking her own bath or working in the kitchen. He hoped she wasn’t silent all day. Since Eric had been born he’d been reading the child-care articles in the newspaper and learned that babies can sense moods and read expressions. He hoped the boy was getting a good start.

  Eric was sleepy after the bath and Maury lifted him up and held him. The child was a comfort to him; wasn’t that odd? This tiny sleepy thing to comfort him? His mind darted, darted. He laid Eric down and went to their closed bedroom door. Seven o’clock. She ought to have something to eat. His hand was still on the knob, half unwilling to turn it. He had an odd flash of recall: long before they were married they’d had a conversation, about being behind a closed door together, and he thought how strange it was that once they would have almost died as a price for one hour alone together, behind a closed door.

  She was just waking up. “What time is it?” She sat up, startled, frightened, apologetic. He sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

  “Aggie, I am, I really am going to try to find some other job,” he said.

  They gave him a new stop. Timmy’s place, they said: be there around eleven for the pick-up. It was a summer day, one of those days when the sky is lofty blue as porcelain, and anywhere else but here the air would smell of grass.

  He drove out New Lots Avenue and turned left. The landscape was familiar: the ragged, unkempt edge of the city, with a few rows of attached houses among empty lots and some one-storied buildings with small stores. Taxpayers, they were called, which meant that they just about paid for themselves and no more; you kept them until times were better, then tore them down and built something that would show a real profit. Until times were better.

  He stopped in front of Timmy’s. It was a candy store on a neglected street. You couldn’t do much business here unless there was a school somewhere in the neighborhood, he thought idly. Then it would be busy after three o’clock and on warm nights when the kids would congregate. He went inside. A couple of fellows, a short one and a tall one, were at the magazine stand. They didn’t look like cops but he glanced at them to be sure, raising his eyebrows at Timmy for a signal.

  “Come in,” Timmy said and they went in back, so the men must be all right, not cops. Timmy had expected him, of course.

  “I’m Maury, expect you’ll be seeing more of me,” he said by way of affability and took what Timmy handed him and put it in his pockets. On the way out, just to be sure, but also out of friendliness, he bought a pack of Luckies, then went outside and started down the block to where he had prudently parked his car.

  A car had drawn up behind his. If it’s cops, he thought, I’ll just keep walking steadily. He heard running steps behind him and, turning, saw the two men from the candy store. He stepped aside but they slammed into him where he stood and knocked him to the ground. Somebody in the car opened the door and he was dragged in yelling and kicking. There was nobody on the street, which was empty as a cemetery. Not cops, he thought, but who—? And then he was on his back on the floor and the men were holding him down. The car roared away.

  “What are you doing to me? For Christ’s sake, lemme go, what do you want, I’ll give it to you—”

  “He’ll give it to you, Shorty, you hear that?” the big one said.

  The car filled with laughter and he couldn’t tell whether there were one or two in the front seat. Shorty brought his fist down on Maury’s nose. The pain was dazzling.

  “Who are you?” he cried. “What do you want? Just tell me. Please. I’ll do what you want, only don’t—” The tall one had slid half off the seat, digging his knee under Maury’s ribs.

  “You tell us,” the big one said. His knee ground deeper. “You tell us what you were doing in Timmy’s place. We know what you were doing, we just wanna hear you tell it.”

  “If you know, then you know I was picking up for Scorzio … Jesus Christ!” Maury screamed. Shorty brought his fist down and when Maury twisted away in time to save his eye, it caught the cheekbone and the side of his bleeding nose. “Ask Scorzio. Call him. Hell tell you—”

  “You’re a friend of Scorzio’s? Ain’t that nice?”

  “Call him, ask him!”

  Someone in the front seat called back, “Christ, is this fruit for real? Where the hell do they pick up a fruit like this?”

  “Bull, you tell him,” Shorty said, mincing his words. “This is my friend Bull, this gentleman. His real name’s Bullshit but we call him Bull. Hell tell you all about it.”

  Bull’s knee dug deeper. I’m fainting, Maury thought, fainting or dying.

  “Look dearie,” Bull said, “you got yourself into a helluva lot of trouble just now and Scorzio can’t help you out of it. You and Scorzio just happened to cross over the line into our territory. Now, Scorzio may think it’s his, but he’s thinking all wrong because it ain’t his, it’s ours, and you goddamn son of a bitch better keep the hell out of it.” He caught Maury’s ears, and pounded his head against the floor of the car.

  “I didn’t know—” Maury was crying, weeping, screaming. “So help me God, I didn’t know, so help me, I wouldn’t have—”

  “Shut the friggin’ bastard up,” someone said. “Toss him the hell out, were through with him.”

  The car lurched and swung and slowed. They were opening the door; it fell wide; they were shoving him, lifting him, kicking him; he heard his own screeching terror, and grabbed crazily, blindly at the door beyond his reach, then at the running board, then at the air.

  It was dark and there was a distant humming as of bees or traffic on a highway. He struggled to discern it, raised his head and felt a pain so sharp that he thought a knife had been thrust into his ear. He screamed and suddenly everything flashed light; he was in a room; there was a fluorescent bulb on the ceiling and someone was standing over him; there were low voices. Then one by one things floated into reality. These were nurses and he was on a bed. It had been their voices, humming and buzzing.

  “Mr. Friedman,” one said, “you’re feeling better.”

  The other voice inquired: “Do you know where you are?”

  He frowned, not comprehending, and then came a white rush of clarity and he understood that they were trying to see whether his mind had been affected. He would have laughed, only his mouth hurt, and he said, mumbling, “Ospil? Ospil?”

  “Yes, you’re in St. Mary’s Hospital. You’ve been here two days. You fell out of a car. You remember that?”

  “Yesh.” Remember. Panic, crimson blinding before the eyes. They’re killing me. Wet his trousers. Pinned down. Pinned. Screaming, witch voices. Witch screams. Theirs? His? And the opening door, rush of speed, air. Remember.

  He shook, gasping.

  “There,” the nurse said. “There. You’ll sleep. Don’t talk. I know you understand me. I just want to tell you before you sleep that you’re going to be all right. You’ve had a bad concussion and a cut on the forehead that will heal nicely. Your collarbone is broken, and two fingers. You’re lucky to’ve come out like that. Your wife’s been here with your neighbors. We sent her home, and she’s all right, too. So don’t worry about anything.”

  Flat calm voice of authority. A mother’s voice. He went to sleep.

  Later on, a man’s voice. Smooth, cool, also authority. “I’m Detective Collier. The doctor says I can have five minutes with you. Can you tell me what happened?”

  Alert now, thinking clearly. The fuzz of drugs mostly gone, so the pain is sharp. Face all sore, wonder what it looks like? Careful how you answer.

  “They push
ed me out of the car.” Feign sluggishness. He won’t know the fuzziness is gone.

  “We know that. Who were they?”

  “Two men. Grabbed. Pulled me in. Then pushed me out.”

  “Yes.” Very patient. “Do you know the men, ever see them before?”

  “Never.”

  “Think, now. Is there anything you remember about them, the way they looked or a foreign accent, or anything? Did you hear them call each other by any names? Think carefully.”

  Anything I remember? Never forget. Ugly gnarled fellow, left eye wandering toward the shoulder, tall muscular guy like a Western movie, green tie, tie staring at me, he leaning over, pounding my face. Bull, name of Bull. Short for Bullshit, Shorty said, laughing.

  “Take your time. I know it’s hard for you.”

  Oh, I’d like to see them hang, I’d stand there laughing. But they know who I am, Agatha alone in the house. He shuddered. “Can’t think. Sorry, I want to, but—”

  “Did you happen to hear the name Bull? Have you heard that before?”

  “Bull? Bull? Nope, nope.”

  The voice, not as patient now. “I hope you’re not trying to conceal anything, Mr. Friedman. It’s hard to believe you don’t remember anything, not one word, that was said from the time you got into that car. What were you doing when they pulled you into the car?”

  “I was on the sidewalk.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. What were you doing in the neighborhood, what was your business there?”

  “Bought a newspaper in the candy store.”

  “Yes. Well, what do you do for a living? You weren’t working that time of the morning?”

  “I don’t have a steady job. Laid off.”

  “Unemployed?”

  “Yes, unemployed.”

  “We were at your house to see your wife. You live quite well. Drive a nice car.”

  What would Agatha have said? He felt strings winding, netting him, and wasn’t able to think strongly.

  Then another voice, “Sorry, Officer, it’s more than five minutes. This man’s been badly hurt and you can see he’s not fit to answer any more questions.”

  “I could get at the heart of this in less than a minute, Doc, if only he’d cooperate.”