Norm drank his beer and stared at the mirror. With his slightest movement, prisms of light glittered on the bottles. He wanted to feel something, but there was only this heaviness, this deadness. “Why don’t you go, then?” he finally said. “Why don’t you just leave? My mother’s had enough trouble.”
“I know she has, but she wants me to stay,” Omar said, leaning closer. “I thought you would, too. I guess I misread you, Norm.”
“Yah, you did.” He thought a minute. “Actually no, you didn’t. You had me all figured out, the jerk, the asshole, buy him a few beers, be his buddy, that’s all he wants.” Norm laughed. “And you were right! Absolutely right, buddy!” He poked Omar’s arm and laughed. “Hey,” he called down to the bartender. He held up two fingers. “For me and my good buddy here!”
“No, I do know you, Norm. You’re right. You see, you remind me of me. I am the world’s most gullible man, Norm. In order to fool you, I’ve got to fool myself first. In order to sell you, I’ve got to sell myself first. I stand now to lose everything I ever wanted, because I said yes when I should have said no to those three hustlers last spring. Poor judgment, it’s the story of my life,” he said with a bitter laugh. “I overextend myself. I make more promises than I can ever keep, because I hate to say no to people. I want everyone to like me, or better yet, love me. And for that, I am a fool. A fool.” His voice broke.
The bartender came toward them with two dripping mugs. Norm drank his beer while Omar continued to talk. He’d been nice to Omar for his mother’s sake, that was all, but now he’d do her a favor and tell the bastard to get the hell out of their lives tonight. And if he didn’t, then Norm would call the cops himself. He’d get rid of the fucking peddler, he thought, chuckling to himself. Omar stood up abruptly then and said they’d better leave. He hadn’t touched his beer, so Norm drank it while Omar watched. “I’ll drive,” he said as they walked out to the car.
“Fine!” Norm said, flipping him the keys. Let the asshole drive.
“On second thought, go ahead, Norm,” Omar said, handing him back the keys. “I trust you.”
To prove that he was sober and in complete control of the car, Norm drove under the limit all the way home. His eyes closed, Omar sat with his head back on the seat. But Norm knew he only pretended to doze, because from time to time with a sudden bump or lurch, his foot would flex toward an imaginary brake.
When they got to Atkinson, Omar opened his eyes and looked around.
“Norm, listen, I know you’re not happy with me right now.”
“Not happy!” Norm cried with disbelief.
“But you’ve got to believe me when I tell you I didn’t do anything wrong.” He reached over and gripped Norm’s arm. His eyes were bright again and his voice trembled. “I swear to you, Norm. I am the victim of bizarre circumstances.”
Norm knew he’d had more to drink than he should have. Not because he was drunk but because his perception was operating on such a high level that every nerve ending bristled.
He took the turn onto East Street a little too fast. The tires squealed and Omar’s hands shot to the dashboard. Omar stayed silent as the car flew along. Norm bit his lip, trying not to smile as he savored Duvall’s fear, the grim profile, the arm still outstretched, the long, white trousered leg stiff now.
“Slow down,” Omar finally warned.
He touched the brake, but the car still squealed around the corner, shimmying a little as he straightened the wheel. As they came over the rise he saw the police car parked in front of the house.
“Shit,” he said, recognizing Chief Stoner’s cruiser.
Omar said nothing. Not a word. Not a sigh. In the second before Omar stepped through the doorway he paused and in an almost imperceptible convulsion seemed to realign his shoulders and stiffen his back. When they came in, Stoner was sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of ice water in front of him. Marie tried to explain why he was here, but Stoner quickly interrupted. Yes, besides the information from the Woodstock Police Department about the two Negro men with Earl Lapham Jones, there was a new lead that he was checking out. A lady right here in town had seen a white man in a straw hat in a station wagon with three Negro men.
Omar sat opposite the Chief, nodding somberly, his eyes fixed on Stoner’s. “It’s hard work, isn’t it, going door-to-door like this. Believe me, I know.”
Norm stood in the doorway to the living room. From here he could see Benjy’s feet sticking out from the couch, and above him on the stairs he could hear Alice breathing.
“Well, actually, I’m not going door-to-door,” Stoner said. “You see, I just remembered something Alice said once. Something about you being a peddler. That’s such an old-fashioned expression, it just stuck in my head. Peddler. Peddler. You don’t hear that much anymore.”
“No, you don’t,” Omar agreed. “Now we all call ourselves traveling salesmen. Kind of gives us a little more respectability, I guess. Peddler sounds so kind of…” He paused. “Itinerant, temporary, like Gypsies bamboozling unsuspecting country—”
“So you are a salesman, then?” Stoner interrupted.
“Yes sir, I am.”
“Do you work alone?”
Omar grinned. “Right over there, I’m proud to say, is my selling partner.”
Stoner glanced back with a smile, which Norm was too slow to return. For some reason he waved instead. His mother kept looking at him.
“You work around here now?”
“Yes sir, we do,” Duvall said.
Norm looked at him. Why lie about that? They never worked around this area. In fact Norm had finally given up asking why they had to drive an hour and a half each day to towns he’d never even heard of. Stoner was asking Duvall what he’d sold before he came to Atkinson. Household items, he said quickly. What kind of items, Stoner asked. Linen, Duvall said. All manner of fine linen, sheets, tablecloths, napkins. Norm remembered him at this very counter with the wire whisk in his hand, remembered it with a vivid clarity that returned butterscotch pudding to the bowls and the fragrance of lilacs to this close kitchen air. The window over the sink had been closed. His mother had been nagging him to see Jarden Greene for a job.
Stoner was asking if he always traveled alone.
“Most often,” Duvall said. “Sometimes I’d take on an occasional hitchhiker for a few miles of company.” He smiled.
“Did you see a young black man in your travels, maybe?” Stoner asked.
“From time to time,” Duvall said, then quickly added, “Oh but not in this state. Mostly I’d see them down south. In fact, now that I think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen a one here yet.” He looked at Stoner. “Vermont even have any Negroes?” he asked in his most obvious drawl.
“You ever wear a straw hat?” Stoner asked, ignoring Duvall’s question.
“No sir, never have.”
“What kind of car you drive?” Stoner asked.
“Cadillac. It’s all I’ve ever driven.” Omar chuckled.
Norm watched his mother and knew the inferno behind her frozen smile.
“Where you from originally?” Stoner asked.
“Alabama,” Duvall said. “Little place called Leestown. Town was founded by Duvalls but now, last I hear, there’s not a one left. In fact, my granddaddy on my momma’s side was sheriff of Leestown for some thirty-odd years. And what a man he was. I don’t think there was a man, woman, or child he hadn’t at one time or another helped or comforted.”
Sonny had been sipping his water.
“Speaking of which, Chief Stoner,” Duvall continued, “may I offer my condolences on the recent passing of your wife?”
“Thank you,” Stoner said softly.
“Both Marie and Alice have spoken of her many kindnesses over the years,” Duvall said.
“Well, thank you. Thank you, Marie. She was a good woman. And she was really very fond of Alice. In fact…” Here he hesitated, then swallowed hard. “In fact, she told me once she loved it when Alice came to the h
ouse, because it was almost like having a daughter.”
Norm sensed Alice cringing in the silence at the top of the stairs. He was starting to feel drained, his own strength waning in the glow of Duvall’s mastery. Stoner carried his glass to the sink. He was saying goodbye, shaking hands with Omar, and asking to be remembered to Alice. After he left, no one said anything. Only Duvall moved. He opened the refrigerator and took out a peach. From the window Norm watched the Chief crossing the driveways toward Harvey Klubock, who had been measuring a strip of broken lattice under his back porch. Louis sat on the top step. Harvey stood and the two men shook hands. Sonny reached up and tousled Louis’s hair.
“Alice!” Norm’s mother called, and Omar looked back quickly. He had been slicing the peach into a bowl.
“What is it?” Alice asked, coming into the kitchen. She was about to pay, to bear the blame of Stoner’s visit, Norm knew.
“What did you mean calling Omar a peddler?” his mother asked, and Alice shrugged. “Why did you say that?” his mother persisted. “To the Stoners, of all people! What were you thinking of? Is that what you do? You go around behind my back belittling me?”
“I didn’t belittle you,” she said.
“Who do you think you are? What’s wrong with you, calling Omar a peddler?” She was so angry she was shaking.
“Well, he is, isn’t he?” Alice said, with that open gaze that had become so unnerving.
“He’s a businessman!” his mother hissed.
“Oh, is that what we’re supposed to tell people?” Alice said, smiling, and Marie grabbed Alice’s wrist and pulled her to her. “What do you mean, ‘tell people’? Tell people!” his mother said through clenched teeth, her face at Alice’s. “You don’t tell people anything!”
“What’s there to tell? Are you kidding? Everyone knows everything!” Alice was laughing, but tears ran down her cheeks.
“Stop it!” his mother demanded when Alice kept laughing. “I said, stop it!”
“It’s true.” She laughed. “My God, there’s a police car out there! Chief Stoner’s grilling our neighbors!”
“Stop it! Do you hear me? I said stop it!” His mother ran to the window, then turned with her hand clamped to her mouth. “Oh God,” she gasped, eyes wide with panic.
“Because of him!” Alice pointed. “Him,” she said, walking right up to Duvall and pointing in his face. “Everything he says is a lie and you believe it.” She looked at each of them. “What’s wrong with you? You all know he’s lying!”
Omar laid down the paring knife. “Alice, I am sorry that man died. I am sorry that my brief and ill-fated involvement with those people has come to this, but all I’m trying to do here is go about my business and be good to your mother.”
“But it’s all a lie,” she said incredulously. “You know who those men were!”
Benjy had come into the kitchen. He looked from face to face.
“And the Chief knows, too! He knows as much as I do,” Omar said, gesturing toward the window. “But all I’d be doing now is hurting your mother, dragging her through more dirt and humiliation. And I think she’s had about enough, don’t you?”
At that, Alice’s head jerked back. “You mean me, don’t you?”
“I don’t point fingers like some people,” Omar said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I don’t sit in judgment on any man or woman, particularly one that’s been in such a…a fragile state, but I think it’s about time you realized the toll it’s taken on your mother.”
“You son of a bitch!” she cried and then ran upstairs.
“Get back here!” his mother called as she started after her.
“Mom!” Norm said, catching her arm. That’s how the bastard did it, hog-tying them with their own fears, hopes, and sins. “She’s upset,” he said.
“Well, I’m tired of it!” Marie cried. “You have no idea how tired I am of it.”
“I know you are, Mom,” he said, and seeing her move closer, thought she wanted to hug him. “Oh Mom, it’s okay,” he said, throwing his arms around her.
“You!” she said, sniffing, then cringed back in disgust. “You’ve been drinking! I can smell it! You reek of it!”
“No, Mom.” He tried to explain. “We just stopped for a sandwich, and it was a bar, and I sat in some beer.” He looked at Duvall, who was spooning sugar over his peaches.
“It was a very messy place,” Duvall said, sitting down to eat, his eerie calm hypnotic in the midst of this nightmare. They were falling apart, coming undone, all but Duvall, who continued not only chewing his peaches, but relishing them. He swallowed. “Very messy,” he said, wiping the corner of his mouth.
Norm couldn’t believe it. That was the best he could do?
The back door squeaked open, and then a knock came at the kitchen door. Sonny Stoner returned, scratching the back of his head. He had just been talking to Harvey Klubock, when little Louis said the strangest thing. He looked down at Duvall. “He said the first time he ever saw you, you came running down the driveway, and you said you were scared, that ‘Niggers’ were chasing you—excuse me, but that’s the word he said you used. You said they had knives and they were going to kill you.”
“Oh my Lord,” Duvall said, shaking his head. “What a tall tale from such a little child.”
“Louis said Benjy was with him. He said they were sitting out back here, and you told them both the same thing.”
Before Omar could say anything, Sonny turned to Benjy, and Norm knew by the tilt of his brother’s head and his darting eyes that it was true. Sonny repeated everything, and Benjy looked at no one but Sonny as he told him that Louie must have made it all up, that it had never happened. Duvall was staring at Benjy. “He gets scared of things,” Benjy said.
“Yah, that’s pretty much what his dad said, too,” Sonny agreed. “Well, it’s tough on a little guy. Having to find out there’s been a corpse out back of your house all summer long.’
“He’s scared of his own shadow,” Marie said so bitterly that both sons looked at her.
“And of course, there was his dog dying, too, don’t forget,” Omar added with a conspiratorial glance at Norm.
Norm wanted to get Benjy alone, but Omar wasn’t letting him out of his sight. Norm asked Benjy to help him with something in the garage, and Omar followed. All night long, Omar sat between them on the couch pretending to watch television. At times his head bobbed forward, and he would awaken with a start. Finally Norm went to bed. He turned out his lights and pretended to sleep. When his mother’s bedroom door closed, he waited for a while, then tiptoed to Benjy’s room and opened the door slowly, just enough to squeeze through.
“Benjy!” he whispered to the curled form under the sheet. The cool night air flowed through the open window. He touched Benjy’s back and he sat up suddenly.
“What? What is it? What do you want?” Benjy demanded until Norm put his hand over his mouth.
“Shh,” he said as Benjy grunted and struggled. “Listen to me. I just want to ask you something.”
“I thought you were Dad. I was dreaming of him. He wanted me to go somewhere with him, and I told him I couldn’t.” Groping for the light, Benjy turned it on.
Norm turned it off. “I don’t want Duvall in here,” he whispered. “Come on. I gotta talk to you. We’ll go out this way.” He started to remove the screen from the window. Benjy said no. Norm said not to worry, he’d go first and help him down. He’d even catch him. Benjy refused. It was too high, too dark, and besides they’d be in big trouble if they got caught.
“Jesus Christ, Benjy, will you have some balls for once! Why are you always so scared of everything?”
“I’m not scared. I just don’t want to get hurt,” Benjy whispered.
“All right, then we’ll go out the door,” he said as patiently as he could. “But be quiet. Don’t make any noise.” He eased up from the bed.
“Why can’t we talk here?” Benjy whispered. “I don’t want to go outside!”
&nb
sp; He paused, sad at the thought that his brother’s biggest fear might not be predators or the dark, but being alone with him.
“All right. We’ll talk here.” He sat back down and asked Benjy about that first day that Duvall had come. “Did he run down the driveway like Louie said?”
“No.”
“Did he say anything about Negroes being after him?”
“No.”
“Did you see him before he came to the house that night?”
“No,” Benjy said softly.
“You’re lying! I know you are. I can tell.”
Benjy didn’t say anything for a moment; then, “No, I’m not.”
“Benjy, I don’t get it. I can see lying to Stoner, but why to me? Duvall already told Mom he knew those men. He says he doesn’t want to get her mixed up in it, but it’s more than that, and we both know it, don’t we? Don’t we?” he said, squeezing his brother’s arm, the bones sharp and alarmingly close to the skin. “Benjy, what if he killed that man? Doesn’t that bother you? Doesn’t it matter? Think of it, he might have killed a man, and he’s in there right now next to Mom.”
“He didn’t! I know he didn’t,” Benjy said.
“How? How do you know? Because he said he didn’t? Alice is right. He’s nothing but a liar! Everything he says and does is a lie! His whole life is a lie. You can’t pick and choose with someone like that. He’s dangerous, Benjy. Can’t you feel how evil he is? You saw how he turned on Alice. He uses people. He finds out what they’re afraid of and the things they really want. I mean, I know! Jesus Christ, I went from despising the asshole to thinking he was the coolest guy I ever met. But it’s all a game with him. He doesn’t have real feelings for people. He’s not normal.”
“But he loves Mom, Norm! He does!” Benjy insisted, his need for this as desperate as her muffled cries when she thought they were asleep. Please God, help me, she would beg. Oh please help me. All at once Norm shivered, not with cold, but with the rawness of flesh being stripped away, exposing every bone and organ to the clear night breeze.
“Even if he does, that doesn’t change anything,” he said.
Songs in Ordinary Time Page 81