“Good, Stan,” Pollock said, lifting his fresh cocktail. “I’m glad we had this little talk.” Merton nodded, chewing, and Pollock watched him. His wife would be skeptical; what was she like? Pollock had met her once, a small, not very lively girl with thin lips. Probably the kind they described as cute; in ten years she would be dumpy. Finishing his drink, he watched Miss Hennessy putting dessert dishes before the women at the next table. The uniform was just right for her; a trim black dress with white collar and cuffs, and the small apron—no more than a few inches of starched white cloth. Facing his way, almost as if to pose for him, she stood erect, holding the tray high beside one shoulder, and handed a dish down to the table with a sweep of her other arm, stretching the dress tight across her small breasts. Then she whirled and walked off toward the door marked “In,” a remarkably graceful, remarkably lovely girl.
His food was getting cold. “This little article of mine,” he said, picking up his fork. “In a way I had this—what we’ve been talking about—in mind when I tacked on that little acknowledgment to Mr. Snyder and yourself. A small thing, of course, but perhaps it might be of some service to you—a trifle of added prestige.”
“Oh, of course it will, sir,” Merton said and grinned. “I’d already planned to make use of it in my résumé.”
“Good, good,” Pollock said, poking at the cold meat and mashed potatoes. He wanted another drink but was afraid Merton might think it strange. “And of course,” he said after a moment, pushing the plate aside and reaching for his coffee, “it’s useful to old Snyder too, in a different way. He can take it home and show his wife what an important man he is.”
Merton’s sudden, loud laughter startled him. He looked up and saw the boy convulsed, his eyes glittering, as if a shared secret joke had been released. “Jesus,” he said, “can’t you picture that? Maybe she’ll buy him a new eyeshade!”
Pollock laughed too, rather hesitantly, and then looked at his plate, sorry. It was the first time he had ever confided in Merton that way, and he knew it was bad policy. He drank his coffee in silence and when he looked up again the girl was coming back, bringing their check.
“Why you hardly touched your lamb, Mr. Pollock. Anything wrong with it?”
“Nothing at all,” he smiled at her. “I just wasn’t very hungry today.” She was adding up the bill, pursing her lips over the figures. Her lipstick was an off-red shade, almost orange, a perfect selection for her ghstening red-brown hair. She did not have Alice’s long thighs, but her own looked solid and nicely rounded under the shifting black skirt. When she had gone with a smiled “good afternoon,” leaving them to divide the check and fumble in their pockets for money, Merton looked after her and turned back with a smile that was almost a leer. “Not bad, is she?”
Pollock stood up abruptly and threw his coins on the tablecloth, offended, and as they walked back to the office he talked very little to Merton, and on business matters only. The afternoon was intolerably long. He sat at his desk staring out the window, glad that Merton and Snyder were busy in the outer office. From time to time he felt guilty about his idleness and tried to concentrate on his work, but there was a dull ache in the back of his head, probably from the martinis, and before long he would find himself staring out the window again. At twenty minutes to five the telephone rang, and the voice of J. C. Farling’s secretary said, “I have Mr. Farling on the wire, Mr. Pollock.” Then there was a click and Farling came on: “George? Listen, that’s a regular peach of an article.”
“Well, thanks, John,” he said, feeling the corners of his mouth curl into a tight smile.
“Why, damn, boy, you never told me you were a talented writer—stuff makes better sense than half the crap I buy from these advertising geniuses of mine! I mean it, George, you missed your calling—you want a transfer?” He laughed, making the telephone’s diaphragm vibrate painfully, and Pollock managed to laugh with him. “—’Course, I’m only kidding, George. Don’t any of us know where we’d be at today without you down there in Accounting. No, but listen, in all seriousness, George, it’s a crackerjack.”
“Well, I’m very glad you liked it, John. You had no objection to my using your name in that context, then, in the third or fourth paragraph? They approved it at Publicity, of course, but I’m delighted if it meets with your personal approval as well.”
“Well, tell you the truth, George, I’ve just given it a quick once-over; got it here on my desk now, kind of glancing through, and Christ knows when the hell I’ll get a chance to really sit down and read it, but listen, anything you want to say in there about me is fine and dandy as far as I’m concerned, so don’t you worry.”
“Well, I wasn’t worried, John, it’s just that I—”
“Okay, swell. Tell you, George, I got somebody here in the office and I got to run. Just wanted to tell you it’s perfectly swell, all the way down the line.”
“Appreciate that very much, John.”
“Fine, fine, George; okay, then.”
“Right,” Pollock said, “thanks for calling, John.” And before he was quite through there was a click and Farling was gone. He put down the telephone and saw that it was wet; his hands were sweating. He dried them on his handkerchief as he got up and walked to the window. The streets below were pale with early dusk, and he began to be very sure what he would do this evening. He would go back to the restaurant and wait for her. He would sit at the bar, have a cocktail and chat with her as she worked, and when the time came for her to leave—she said she left at six—he would say something charming: “I wonder if I might see you home?” Or perhaps, with a flourish of his hat and a half-clowning, courtly bow: “Look here, Miss Hennessy, I’d like to buy you a drink, and if that’s against the rules I’d like to see you home. I’m sure that isn’t against the rules.”
Through the office partitions he heard the chatter and banging of desks that meant it was five o’clock. He stood over his own desk and put the papers in order, wanting to wait until the crowd was gone, and especially anxious to give Snyder and Merton a chance to leave. He usually walked to Grand Central with one or both of them, and it would be difficult to shake them tonight. Finally, when the noise had subsided, he took his briefcase and left. Snyder had gone home—the ridiculous eyeshade was the only thing left on his desk—but Merton had not. He was out in the nearly empty main office, still in his shirtsleeves, huddled over some papers with one of the bookkeepers.
Pollock waved goodnight, got his hat and coat and hurried to catch the elevator. But before he reached the ground floor it struck him as pointless to be carrying his briefcase, and, hoping Merton would still be busy, he stayed on the elevator to take it back upstairs. As the doors opened again he saw Merton disappearing into the cloakroom. The bookkeeper had been dismissed and there was no one left in the strangely hushed room.
Pollock hurried to his office; if he wanted to avoid Merton now the only thing to do was wait there with the door closed until he heard him leave. It seemed a long time, and he began to feel foolish for hiding, but finally he heard Merton’s footsteps come out of the cloakroom and go toward the elevators. Midway they stopped, and Pollock heard him pick up a telephone and dial a number.
“Hello, honey,” the boy said, “listen, I had to work late and I’m just now leaving, so I guess I won’t make it to the store before it closes.”
Annoyed, Pollock leaned against his desk, waiting.
“Huh?—Well, okay, then.—Sure.—What?—No, I feel all right, but I got a lousy headache. Had some drinks at lunch and I guess I’m not used to it.—No, with old Pollock, believe it or not. Can you beat that? Jesus, it was a riot too; the old bastard got half looped on two martinis and started giving me this big Lionel Barrymore routine. ‘Son, you’ll be leaving us soon for greater things, because youth must be served, and yackety, yackety, yack’—Yeah, I’m not kidding; and listen, then he says, ‘I want you to know that I won’t stand in your way—’ What the hell’s he think, I’m going to ask his permission bef
ore I quit or something?—Yeah, that’s what I felt like telling him. Well, listen, honey, I want to get out of here. Tell you more about it when I get home, okay?—Okay, then. ‘Bye now.”
Pollock waited until the footsteps reached the elevators, and until the elevator doors opened and closed, before he left his hiding place.
The restaurant was almost empty but the bar was crowded. Pollock was relieved to see that no one from American Bearing was there. He took the end stool nearest the restaurant, and saw that she was serving tea or something at a table not far away, with her back to him. He looked away before she turned around, for it would be better if she saw him that way first, it would look less planned.
He drank the first martini a little too fast, and then looked over just in time to catch her eye. She smiled, raising her eyebrows in surprise, and went on with her work. He ordered another and gave his full attention to watching it being made; the bartender’s casually careful measuring of ingredients into a mixing glass, the clamping of the glass mouth-in-mouth with the aluminum shaker, the vigorous pumping ritual that made the bartender’s cheeks tremble, and finally the pouring of the drink into its frail stemmed glass.
“You’re quite a stranger here in the afternoon, Mr. Pollock,” the girl said. She was standing right beside him.
“Why, hello there,” he said, “still tired? You know, you don’t look any more tired now than you did at noon.”
“Guess I’ve got my second wind.” At first he thought she had come over just to talk to him, but then she said, “Two Manhattans, Harry,” and he realized she was filling an order.
“Well, your day’s nearly over now, isn’t it?”
“Thirty-one more minutes,” she laughed, her eyes shining. “I count ’em.”
What lovely skin, he was thinking, lovely soft young skin. “Do you live far from work?”
“Brooklyn. Takes me about an hour.”
He wanted to slide his hand around her waist as she stood there. Such a slim, straight little waist. “That must be quite a job, riding the subway so far every day.”
“You get used to it,” she said. “Just like everything else. Thanks, Harry.” She picked up her tray and turned around, careful to keep the drinks from spilling, and then she was gone again.
Emptying his glass, Pollock let the olive roll into his mouth and chewed it slowly. She might not come back until quitting time, but it was all right. He would smile at her a few more times, and it would be only natural for her to stop again on her way out. And then it would happen, easily and casually. She would say, “Why yes, thank you, Mr. Pollock, that’s awfully sweet of you,” and they would get a cab, and on the way he would say, “Look, why don’t you telephone your home and come to dinner with me,” or something like that. It would be easy in the cab, enclosed with her, with the excitement of early evening rushing by and her body only inches away.
“Care for another, sir?”
“Yes, please.” He shifted his position slightly, angling for a place in the bar mirror that wasn’t blocked by rows of bottles, but when he found the reflection of his craning, solemn face, fingers fumbling at his tie, it made him feel absurd: a middle-aged cuckolded man, sprucing up for a planned seduction.
He settled back on the stool, depressed, and drank off part of the new cocktail. Alice and Werner, driving west—had they started yet? Was she laughing and excited? The blood started in his throat. The only thing to do was put it out of his mind.
Young Merton, two-faced and flip, an undeserving, crude young man. He decided to put Merton out of his mind too, and found that putting things out of his mind was surprisingly easy. He concentrated on looking out the plate-glass window at the endless succession of faces that passed, momentarily bright in the darkening street, windblown and tense with hurrying: a crowd of giggling office girls, a young couple talking eagerly with puffs of mist whipping from their mouths. Then for a while he concentrated on two quarters, a dime and three nickels that lay on the bar beside his glass. With a finger he arranged them in a straight line, pushed them into disorder and arranged them again. And then he concentrated on Miss Hennessy across the room as she walked toward the “In” door, hips swaying, skirt floating around the legs, hair bouncing lightly on the shoulders. There was a poem about returning no more. How did it go? Something about watching the boats go by.
“Fill it up, sir?”
“Yes, please.” A poem by James Joyce: Alice had said, “Oh, look, George, read this one. I think it’s lovely,” and she handed him the book. They were in one of those little bookstores on Eighth Street that Alice liked, the ones with the creaking wooden floors. They were Christmas shopping and he was dead tired, his feet hot and sore in their tight shoes. (When was it? Not last Christmas; Christmas before last? Had it really been that long since they’d shopped together?) “Watching the Needleboats at San Sabba”—or San something-or-other. He read the poem over a few times before he understood it, and then he looked at her, and her eyes were shining. “Isn’t that lovely?” she said. “Isn’t that perfectly lovely?”
I heard their young hearts crying
Loveward above the glancing oar
And heard the prairie grasses sighing:
No more, return no more.
O hearts, O sighing grasses,
Vainly your loveblown bannerets mourn!
No more will the wild wind that passes
Return, no more return.
Suddenly it was five minutes after six. The clock had startled him; he checked it with his watch and swung around on the stool to look for her. Two new waitresses were moving among the tables. Had she gone? He watched the “Out” door and waited, his chest tight, and then she came, looking even younger in her street clothes. She glanced at her watch and began to hurry, almost running through the restaurant. He slid off the stool and started toward her. “Say, Miss Hennessy!”
She turned her head, startled, and smiled at him but didn’t stop. “Goodnight, Mr. Pollock.”
“Just a minute, Miss Hennessy, I—” She was almost to the door and he hurried to head her off, nearly colliding with a group of people coming in. “Look—” he began, and then he remembered about the hat and the little flourish he had planned, but it came off badly. “I’d like to buy you a drink, Miss Hennessy—Mary—but I suppose that’s against the rules.”
“Yes it is, Mr. Pollock. That’s very nice of you but I’m late and I’ve got to hurry.”
“Precisely,” he said, stepping around her to block the door and touching her sleeve. “I know you’re late and that’s why I thought perhaps you’d allow me to see you home.” She smiled and drew her sleeve away. “No, I’m sorry, Mr. Pollock, that’s against the rules too. Now, why don’t you go back and finish your—”
His hand slid around her arm and squeezed, tight, and his voice was nearly a shout: “What rules?”
Her eyebrows jumped and the smile was gone. He dropped his hand quickly and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that I don’t see why you should object when I’m only trying to be pleasant.”
“Well, I do object.” Her eyes were narrow now, darting first at him and then toward the bar, as if looking for help. “I don’t like to be grabbed that way.”
“But I wasn’t grabbing, don’t you understand? I was simply—”
“All right, Mr. Pollock, let’s just forget it, all right? Goodnight.” And with a tentative half smile she slipped around him and out of the plate-glass door, closing it behind her and walking quickly away. For an instant he stood there uncertainly, and then he lunged out after her, cramming on his hat, aware as he passed the window that faces at the bar were laughing at him. She was twenty feet away, headed for a subway entrance, and he walked as fast as he could, then ran a few steps. “Wait a minute—I’m not drunk, don’t you understand?” He was at her shoulder now, half running, the unbuttoned topcoat flapping behind him. “Look, you don’t understand. If I made a scene back there I’m sorry—if you’d just let me explain�
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She stopped at the head of the subway stairs and faced him. “All right, Mr. Pollock, say whatever it is you want to say and get it over with. Don’t yell like that and run after me. Everybody’s looking.”
“I’m awfully sorry, I don’t know what gave you the idea that—well, I suppose a girl in your position does have a lot of trouble with men trying to pick you up—”
“Is that all you wanted to say?”
“Well, no, actually I”—he felt his mouth leap into a ridiculous grin—“simply wanted to take you to dinner and—”
“Let go of my arm.”
“—get to know you a little better. I don’t see any reason why—”
“Let go of my arm.”
“—we couldn’t have a pleasant—”
“Let go of my arm!” She squirmed away and ran down the steps, and he clattered after her, pushing past another man. At the landing she looked back, then fled down the second flight and through the crowd at the change booth.
“Wait a minute!” he called, clearing the last of the steps. “Wait a minute!” She was out on the platform now, and a train was there, and its doors were sliding open. “Wait!” A sharp blow caught him in the groin and doubled him over—the turnstile. In a rage he whipped back the skirt of his topcoat and jammed a hand in his pocket for a dime. He sprang free just as the doors closed, ran into the chest of a man in a leather jacket and reeled off to the side.
“Why the hell don’t you watch out?” the leather jacket said.
The train was moving now and Pollock stood there watching it. Flatbush Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, and then it was gone.
“Hey you. I said why don’t you watch out?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, take it easy next time, for Christ’s sakes, huh?”
“Of course. I’m sorry.”
He went out and up the stairs, carefully buttoning his coat and righting his hat. And he walked four or five blocks before he realized, coming to a halt and looking around, that he had absolutely no idea where he was going.
The Collected Stories Page 54