Old Dogs and Children

by Robert Inman

  “Well, let’s see—,” Doris started.

  “Is the bread fresh?” Bright interrupted.

  “Oh, yes. The Golden Hearth man was just by here an hour ago. Fresh week, fresh bread. You know the old saying.” Doris laughed. Doris was just a little too loud this morning, a little nervous, trying hard to say too much of just the right thing to keep from saying the wrong thing. She wrinkled up her nose as if the newspaper she had stuffed under the counter had begun to smolder.

  “Where’s your car this morning?” Doris asked, looking out the big plate glass window that gave her a cinemascope view of Birdsong Boulevard and Bright’s house across the street with the Winnebago hulking under the pecan trees in the driveway.

  “It’s up the street,” Bright said. “It expired this morning.”

  “Oh?” Doris paused for a moment, waiting. Then, “I reckon you’ll have to get Big Deal on the case.”

  “I reckon,” Bright said, and left Doris standing there while she and Jimbo fetched a loaf of bread from the shelf at the side of the store and a clump of three good, firm bananas from the produce section. They brought their items back to the counter, where Bright paid Doris with a wrinkled dollar bill from her purse.

  Doris rang up their purchase on the cash register, a new device that whirred and hummed and slowly ejected a piece of paper out of the top, as if it were sticking out its tongue. Doris bagged the bread and the bananas, ripped off the receipt and dropped it into the bag. “Here,” Doris said, as she handed Bright the bag and a few coins in change. “Don’t forget your Casino Caper card.”

  “My what?”

  “Ain’t you heard about the new contest?” Doris asked, reaching under the counter and handing her a card. It said DIXIE VITTLES CASINO CAPER at the top and SCRATCH AND WIN at the bottom, and there were three large black rectangles in between.

  “It starts today. It’s like playing the slot machines in Las Vegas,” Doris said. “You scratch off that black stuff on them rectangles there, and underneath is fruits and so forth. Then next time, you get another card and scratch off the black and if the fruits match up, you win a prize. They got a Cadillac automobile and a trip to Las Vegas and even cash money.”

  “Why?” Bright asked.

  Doris stared at her, puzzled. “What do you mean, why?”

  “What has Las Vegas got to do with a grocery store? Goodness, grocery stores don’t even smell like grocery stores anymore. You used to be able to walk into a grocery store and smell food. Fresh bread and vegetables and meat and soap powder. Now, they’ve got it all in cans and plastic. Grocery stores smell like linoleum.” She looked at the DIXIE VITTLES CASINO CAPER card. “And now the fruits are on cardboard.”

  Doris laughed. “Folks just want to have a little fun, I reckon. Think they’re getting something for nothing, you know.”

  “I suppose.” Bright handed the card to Jimbo. “Here, you hold on to this. And if you get rich, let me know.”

  “If you win a trip to Las Vegas, you can take your grandmama in your Cadillac,” Doris said. Jimbo just stared at her.

  They went out again into the bright hot sunshine and Jimbo held her hand as they waited at the corner for a tractor-trailer to rumble down Claxton, squeal to a halt with a wheezing of air brakes, and make a wide turn onto Birdsong Boulevard.

  “Are you excited about going to the beach?” she asked as they crossed the street.

  “I suppose so.”

  “You don’t sound much like it.”

  “Mama gets upset when I get in the water,” Jimbo said. “Rupert puts on lots of sunburn stuff and wears a big floppy hat and sits under the umbrella. And every time I get in the water, Mama starts yelling for me to be careful and watch for sharks and don’t go out too far and finally Rupert has to get up and take off his hat and get in the water with me. At least, that’s what happened last summer when we went to the beach, right after Mama and Rupert got married.”

  “Is Rupert much fun in the water?” Bright asked as they stepped up on the curb. She wondered if he wore his black socks on the beach.

  “He’s okay. He can’t swim.”

  “Good Lord,” Bright said softly.

  Bright looked over at Buster Putnam’s house next door. The front door was standing wide open, but that was nothing particularly new. Buster didn’t seem to care much about whether the front door was open or closed, whether flies or even large animals wandered in and out at their pleasure. His pickup truck was parked in the driveway, an old green GMC with fading paint and a battered tailgate. But there was no sign of Buster.

  “Whose house is that?” Jimbo asked as they crossed the lawn.

  “General Montgomery V. Putnam,” Bright said, “who was almost the commandant of the entire United States Marine Corps.”

  “Does he live there?” Jimbo said, taking in the sagging shutters and peeling paint.

  “After a fashion.” Probably inside sleeping it off, Bright thought, oblivious to chaos. Of course, Buster Putnam was a warrior, no stranger to death and madness. Perhaps it was peace and tranquillity, after a life in bedlam, that had him buffaloed. She supposed that it depended on your perspective and what you considered normal.

  As for herself, Bright discovered as they climbed the steps, she was strangely at ease for the first time since early morning, and she wondered why. Perhaps, she thought, it was the presence of this strange, silent child holding her hand. He had taken her mind off all the rest—Buster, Flavo, Little Fitz, even Roseann. She looked down at him curiously, wondered for an instant what he was like under all the silence. She realized that she would probably never know. Roseann wouldn’t let her.

  The refrigerator went clunk as Bright was fixing the sandwiches. She stopped, knife poised over the mayonnaise jar, and stared at the Kelvinator, realizing that the faint, almost inaudible hum of the refrigerator had been an undercurrent in her kitchen since 1939, as much a part of it as the air she breathed. Now it was so awesomely quiet that the knife made a jarring rattle when she set it down on the counter. She opened the door of the Kelvinator and felt the cool air on her face as she bent to stare into its innards, looking for some clue among the small Glad Wrap–covered bowls of leftovers, dibs and dabs of mashed potatoes, veal patties, broccoli, and carrots. She closed the door and looked up to see Rupert standing in the doorway.

  “The refrigerator went clunk,” she said. “I’ve had it since 1939, and it never went clunk before.”

  “It’s a museum piece,” Rupert said.

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “No offense. They don’t build ’em like this anymore.” He rapped the top of the Kelvinator with his knuckles. “They don’t build anything like this anymore. It’s all plastic and cheap sheet metal now. Lots of plastic. Nothing wrong with plastic, mind you, but it doesn’t make for very sturdy appliances.” Rupert got up on his tiptoes and peered down into the round motor housing on the top of the refrigerator, then sniffed. “Motor’s gone.” Bright could smell it now, the faint acrid aroma. “How long have you had this motor?” he asked.

  “Since I’ve had the refrigerator.”

  Rupert shook his head, marveling. “Can you imagine that? An electric motor that’s been running for forty years.”

  Bright’s heart sank. She didn’t want a new refrigerator. Giving up the old Kelvinator would be giving up another small piece of Fitzhugh Birdsong. She could remember, as clearly as if it had been yesterday, Fitzhugh standing there next to it, smiling broadly. Fitzhugh had rescued the house from the ravages of the Flood and built on the second story, but it was the refrigerator he was proudest of. It made her heart ache to think of it. And suddenly, standing there in her tiny kitchen with Rupert Blasious staring at her, she discovered that she was crying.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said, the words barely a whisper.

  He stepped quickly, instinctively to her and put his arms around her and she leaned against him, hiding for a moment in the warm space of his comfort. He was very gentle, very solid, and s
he let him enfold her, snuffling softly against his knit shirt.

  “There now,” Rupert said, patting her on the back. “Don’t worry, I can fix it.”

  She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. “You can?”

  “Of course. It’s just a motor.”

  She drew back and he released her, looking down into her eyes. “All right now?”

  She nodded, blushing with embarrassment. “I don’t know what got into me.” Bright felt stupid and foolish. She hadn’t done that for a long time, not even at Fitzhugh’s death. But now she was crying over him here in the kitchen on a warm June morning, eight years after he was gone, after she thought she had put it all behind her.

  Rupert smiled. “Maybe you’ve just had a hard morning.”

  “Yes. I suppose that’s it.” She plucked a paper towel from the roll by the sink, wiped her eyes and blew her nose softly. “Thank you.”

  “Now,” Rupert said, clearing his throat, turning away to give her a bit of space to collect herself. “Let’s see what we can do about this antique here.” He bustled about, pulling in a chair from the breakfast room and standing up on it in his sock feet, peering down into the motor housing. “It’s a standard-sized motor. Might have to monkey around with the fittings a bit, but I can probably salvage enough off the old one to make do.” He looked down at Bright. “Mind you, they don’t make motors like they used to, either. A new one won’t last forty years.”

  “Well, when the new one goes clunk, I’ll call you back,” she said. She felt much better now. The sight of Rupert up on the chair in his seersucker Bermuda shorts and black socks was somehow very comforting.

  He smiled. “Fair enough.”

  Roseann poked her head through the doorway, frowning. “What’s the matter? What are you doing up on that chair?”

  “The refrigerator went clunk,“ Rupert said. “I’m gonna fix it.”

  “Fix it? What do you mean?”

  “It needs a new motor.”

  “Good grief! We’ll never get to the beach!” Roseann’s hand went to her hair.

  “Of course we will.” Rupert climbed down off the chair and headed past her into the parlor with his jogging shoes in his hand. “I’ll just get my tools out of the camper …”

  “Rupert!” she called after him, but he was gone, letting the screen door bang behind him. Roseann turned to Bright. “He just can’t stand it!” she cried. “He’s always got a project going!” The color was high in her face. “You should see the house. He’s been adding a room for nine months now. Nine months! Wires hanging out of the walls, dust everywhere. And pieces of fiberglass insulation. Do you realize that if you breathe fiberglass insulation it will give you lung cancer?”

  Bright stared at her. “Roseann, you’re going to have another asthma attack if you don’t watch it …”

  Jimbo appeared at Roseann’s side. “What’s the matter?”

  “Rupert has gone into the refrigerator repair business,” she said with a disgusted toss of her head.

  “Oh,” Jimbo said, and went back to the parlor.

  “Roseann,” Bright said, “go sit down at the breakfast room table. I’ll bring you a sandwich. Do you want potato salad?”

  “No, Mama. I don’t want potato salad. I want to go to the beach.”

  Bright ignored that. She turned back to the counter and picked up the knife, stuck it in the mayonnaise jar, and spread a thick coating of mayonnaise on a slice of bread.

  Roseann stood there in the doorway, fidgeting, one hand plucking at her hair. The silence hung heavy between them, punctured only by the sound of Bright’s knife against the jar. Finally, Roseann took a deep, noisy breath that seemed to suck all the air out of the kitchen. She took a step into the room. “Mama, can I ask you something?” Her voice was low, conspiratorial.

  “Of course.” Bright kept working, spreading mayonnaise on another slice of bread, placing a piece of ham and some crisp lettuce between the slices.

  “Can Jimbo stay here with you this week?”

  Bright stopped, set the sandwich down on a plate, and wiped her hands on her apron. She waited a moment, then turned to Roseann. “Here? Why?”

  “Rupert and I need some time.”

  “For what, Roseann?” She could hear the accusing tone in her voice. Have you messed up something else?

  “Oh,” she said quickly, “nothing’s wrong. We’re doing just fine. We just need some time off by ourselves, you know, where we can talk …”

  “About?”

  “Things.”

  “Such as?” It was an old, familiar, wearying pattern that went back to Roseann’s childhood—the two of them faced off, firing words at each other, Bright trying to hit the moving target, Roseann bobbing and weaving, hand tugging at her hair the way she was doing now.

  “Well …”

  “Roseann!” Bright said sharply. “Stop!” Roseann froze. “Now explain to me what’s going on.”

  Roseann took another deep breath. “I want Rupert to go into business for himself.” She paused, waiting for Bright to ask why. Bright crossed her arms over her chest. “He’s wonderful with his hands,” Roseann went on after a moment. “I complain about the mess, but he can fix anything or make anything. He builds these marvelous machines for the faculty members. Lots of wires and computer chips and little bitty machine parts. But he’s just on the payroll, and everything he does belongs to the University. He could do it under contract, have his own shop, and everything would be his. If he invented something, it would be his—the patents, the royalties, all that. He’s got this idea … well, it could be worth a lot.”

  “And what does the University think about it?”

  “Oh, it’s fine with them. They’ve talked about it. He’s been thinking about it for years, in fact. But he just won’t do anything.”

  “He’s a deliberate man,” Bright said.

  “Oh”—Roseann gave a short laugh—“is he. When I try to talk to him about it, he just sits there and puffs on that pipe and stares off into space and smiles and says, ‘Maybe someday.’ ”

  “So you want to force the issue,” Bright said.

  Roseann shook her head. “We just need to talk about it.”

  Bright could imagine it, a week on the beach with Rupert huddled under the umbrella, wearing his floppy hat, slathered with sunblock lotion, Roseann’s voice beating down on him like the fierce noonday sun. If Rupert Blasious were not miserable by now, he would be by week’s end. And she imagined Jimbo, small and quiet, just sitting and watching and listening. She turned back to the counter, feeling the hopeless anger rising in her, Roseann trying to hem her in, dumping a ten-year-old boy in her lap when what she really needed was some peace and quiet, some time to put things back in order. Jimbo was not Bright’s responsibility. Jimbo … Oh, drat!

  She picked up the plate with the sandwich on it. “Your sandwich is ready. Go get your glass and I’ll pour you some more iced tea.”

  “Mama …”

  “Not now!”

  Roseann stood staring for a moment, then gave a final tug on her hair and turned away with a jerk.

  Rupert came, lugging a large gray metal toolbox, and set it down on the floor next to the Kelvinator. “You want to finish fixing the lunch before I start making a mess?”

  “That’s fine,” Bright said. “You come and sit down and eat and then you can get to work in here. Are you sure you want to fool with this old thing?”

  Rupert waved his hand. “A fellow doesn’t get a chance to work on a fine piece of machinery every day. It won’t take long, really.”

  They ate at the breakfast room table, Roseann wrapped in a sullen silence, Bright and Rupert making desultory talk. Bright watched in fascination as Jimbo picked at his food, carefully plucking out all the bits of pickle from the potato salad and making a neat pile of them at the edge of the plate, then opening up the sandwich, tearing the sliced ham into small pieces and eating them one by one, leaving the bread and lettuce. He worked at it a
rduously, and when he had finished, the plate was a round white disaster area, littered with the shucked-off remains of the lunch. He had eaten only the ham and a few pieces of potato. Roseann seemed to pay him no attention until he finished, and then she told him to go brush his teeth. They had a long discussion about the difficulty of retrieving his toothbrush from his suitcase in the Winnebago, and finally she snapped at him and he shrugged and got up from the table and left.

  Roseann wiped her mouth primly with her paper napkin, folded it in half and tucked it under the edge of her plate, then placed her fork squarely in the middle and polished off the last swallow of iced tea. She looked over at Rupert. “How long is this …”—she waved her hand in the direction of the kitchen—“… thing going to take?”

  Rupert crumpled his napkin, dropped it onto the plate, sat back and rubbed his stomach. “Half hour, maybe. Why don’t you go lie down for a while. Bright, can Roseann lie down for a while?”

  He is an incredibly patient man, Bright realized, probably almost impossible to anger.

  “Of course,” Bright said. “Go stretch out on my bed.”

  “All right,” she said with a resigned sigh, and left them. Bright gathered the dishes and took them to the sink while Rupert started to work on the refrigerator, removing the round white housing on top and exposing the motor and compressor, pointing out the parts to her as she washed up the dishes.

  “Should I take the food out while you work on it?” Bright asked. “I could take it over to the Dixie Vittles and put it in the freezer.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary. It should be all right.” He ran his finger around the edge of the door. “Nice tight seal, even after all these years.”

  “Well, there’s potato salad in there. Potato salad spoils easily. You shouldn’t ever take potato salad to a picnic because it spoils easily.”

  Rupert nodded. “I’ve heard that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen potato salad at a picnic. But I think the inside will stay cool for a while longer. It shouldn’t take long.”