The focus of Cooper’s living room was a rubber raft packed with provisions. Anything vital to life, explained Cooper, was kept in the raft. Naturally it was a nuisance digging through the gear in the raft every time you wanted a match, but tropical storms gave no warning. You had to be prepared. Every morning he checked that items borrowed from the raft were back in place. He checked the flashlight—did the batteries still work? He checked the log book and the fountain pen—did it have enough ink? He checked the matches, the rations, the life jackets.
“Whatever you take from the raft during the day goes back into the raft at night,” he explained. Then he added, as an afterthought, “The clock and the calendar do not go into the raft unless we have to evacuate the island.”
In his slow, meticulous way, he explained to Ben the importance of winding the clock and marking off the days on the calendar. A busty blond knelt over the month of March and drew her hands over her exquisitely airbrushed breasts.
“The one thing you don’t want to lose on this island,” said Cooper, “is time.”
Sometimes he dropped a stitch. Or a word.
“Catholic?” he inquired one morning.
“Me, sir?”
“You’re wearing a medal.”
Ben smiled. “This isn’t a holy medal, sir. It’s a good-luck charm. My dad brought it back from the war. The First World War.”
Cooper laid aside his knitting, leaned over, and examined the coin.
“I thought it was St. Columba—the wings and all. My mother has St. Columba.”
“I met a kid in the hospital who had St. Anthony, sir,” said Ben, eager to keep the conversation going.
Cooper did not appear interested in the kid who had St. Anthony.
“My mother is a nun,” he observed. “After Dad died and I left home, she took orders.”
“That’s amazing, sir.”
“And I’m not even Catholic.”
“When you go home, do you go to—”
“I don’t go home,” said Cooper. “I don’t have a home to go to. I don’t even have any relatives. I’m an only child.”
“I’m a twin, sir,” said Ben. Not that Cooper would give a hang.
“The heavenly twins,” murmured Cooper. “What I miss on this island are the stars. The stars are different here. No Big Dipper. No Little Dipper. No Orion. No heavenly twins.”
He resumed his knitting, and Ben supposed he had used up his ration of words for the day and was surprised when Cooper said, “Are you identical?”
“No, sir. My brother’s short and I’m tall, he’s right-handed and I’m a lefty. I bat both, though.”
“A switch hitter,” said Cooper. Then, in a softer voice: “Are you one of the great ones?”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“If I could have my own team with my choice of players, dead or alive, I’d pick Christy Mathewson to pitch.”
“Yeah, he’d be good, sir,” said Ben.
A faint smile twitched on Cooper’s lips.
“I thought you might say Lefty Grove. Some people favor him.”
“I’d stick with Matty. He was really good.”
“Grove is good. Walter Johnson was good. Grover Cleveland Alexander was good. But Matty was great. I don’t care what people say. Matty was the greatest.”
At lunch two days later, Cooper asked, “Who’d you put in the outfield?”
“Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth. Tris Speaker.” Ben hesitated. “Or Joe DiMaggio. Maybe Joe DiMaggio.”
At breakfast a week later: “I’d pick Mickey Cochrane for catcher, if I could have him the way he was before he got beaned. And Lou Gehrig at first, before he got sick. Second, now—who would you pick for second?”
“Gehringer, sir,” said Ben.
“You lean toward the Tigers. Hornsby’s the better man. But what good would it do to have Hornsby? A team that good, there’d be nobody in the whole world they could play.”
21
Borrowed Clothes
SATURDAY MORNING, BAGGING GROCERIES at Clackett’s Fine Foods, Willie tried to keep his mind on his work. Mr. Clackett was out of sorts; his wife, who usually took the telephone orders, was sick, and he had to cover for her. And keeping track of the new ration stamps was enough to drive a man crazy; blue tokens for this, red tokens for that, stamps for sugar and butter and meat. And so many of his old customers expected him to put aside secret reserves of chocolate and cigarettes for them, in spite of the shortages.
At ten-thirty, after which no more telephone orders were accepted, Mr. Clackett put Willie to work packing the orders for delivery and told him he could deliver them when he came back from his lunch date with Marsha. Willie was careful not to mention that his lunch date was a fashion show at St. Joseph’s. The fashion show was free.
In the chilly back room, lit only by a single bulb, Willie slipped around the damp floor prying apart the heavy delivery crates (lethal when dropped on a toe). No matter how often Willie swept the floor—and he swept it often; Mr. Clackett was very neat—there were always thin rivulets of milk and stray lettuce leaves crushed to a slippery pulp underfoot and a general dampness on everything. “It’s condensation,” said Mr. Clackett. “You should have seen this place before I got the electric icebox. You should have seen it at the end of the day with the blocks of ice melting all over the floor.”
Willie separated the orders and was trying to read Mr. Clackett’s handwriting on the first one when a square of light fell into the room. He glanced up to see a man standing in the loading door, which opened to the outside.
The man was large, but not fat, and he wore white shoes and a wool suit (expensive, but not in good taste, Willie decided; the checks were too large, too loud), and a gold watch gleamed across his stomach. The chain was not gold. It was leather, and Willie wondered why a man would wear leather if he could afford gold. The man laid his hand over the watch, as if it hurt him, and said in the friendliest voice imaginable, “Is Roger here?”
Willie was about to say that no one named Roger worked there, but suddenly he remembered seeing the name Roger George Clackett on his employer’s ration book.
“You mean Mr. Clackett? I’ll call him.”
And he slipped into the store, where Mr. Clackett was ringing up purchases for an elderly woman in a green raincoat.
“There’s a man at the loading door asking for Roger.”
Mr. Clackett handed the register over to Willie, saying, “Everything’s rung up, just bag it and carry it to the car,” and strode to the packing room.
“How’s the Packard running, Mrs. Reese?” asked Willie. He knew the style of chatter Mr. Clackett’s customers appreciated, mostly well-to-do widows who expected good service. He loaded the two full bags into the trunk. A maid would unload them and carry them into her apartment.
“Every time I buy gasoline, the attendant makes me an offer on it,” she said.
She cast a critical eye on the bags as he nestled them beside the spare tire.
“I suppose you’ll be called up one of these days,” she added.
He shook his head. “The army doesn’t want me. I’ve got flat feet.”
“Well, you’re lucky, aren’t you?” she chuckled. Willie did not know what to answer. He opened the door on the driver’s side and handed her in. There were no shortages for these women, who still went shopping in silk stockings. Wanda had put hers away for the duration and bought a bottle of leg makeup which was guaranteed not to stain one’s clothes and did.
An agitated Mr. Clackett met him at the door.
“What did the guy look like, Willie?”
“He was big and had brown hair, and he was wearing a checked suit and a gold watch on a leather chain. When he asked for Roger, I thought he was an old friend of yours.”
“Never in my entire life have I been called Roger.”
“He asked for Roger,” persisted Willie.
“Not even in grade school did anyone call me Roger. If he comes around again, try to detain him
till I get there.”
“You mean he’s gone?”
Mr. Clackett nodded. “There’s a black market operating in the area, and a man has been coming around to grocery stores and gas stations, trying to get the help involved. The guy who came here sounds like the same guy who came to Peter’s Deli last week and asked John’s wife if Peter was there. He said they were old friends from high school.”
Willie stared at him, perplexed.
“Peter was John’s parrot,” explained Mr. Clackett. “John named the deli for his parrot.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Willie.
“Neither did this guy. It’s the same business all over again, trying to sound like a close friend. I’d rather lose all my customers than go that way. My customers are patriotic.”
But he did not sound completely certain.
“Trouble with the new rationing is, it encourages crime,” he went on. “People are stealing gas, people are stealing tires off the cars, people are stealing ration stamps. And creeps like this guy come along and buy the stuff. I’m ashamed to write my boy about what goes on in this country.”
The door opened and they both jumped. Helen Bishop came in, and Mr. Clackett said, “Go meet your girl. I’ll take care of Mrs. Bishop.”
Willie hurried home to dress. He opened his wardrobe and found nothing that suited him, nothing that made him look young and handsome, well educated and well bred. He tried on this, he tried on that. He opened Ben’s wardrobe and was surprised to see so many shirts and ties identical to his own, though Willie had often found himself buying clothes like Ben’s. If Ben bought a new blazer, Willie would buy one like it a few months later, a cheaper model. If Ben bought a new tie, Willie would ask for the same pattern. But he took care never to wear that blazer or that tie on the same day Ben wore his.
He selected one of Ben’s ties: navy, flecked with gulls.
When he arrived at Marsha’s house, he was astonished to find himself fifteen minutes early, and he sat in his parked car, looking at his watch, till a voice startled him.
“Since you’re here, let’s go. I’m all ready.”
He had not expected her to be on time. She was usually late. She did not wait for him to open the door but slid herself into the seat beside him. A cloud of perfume stunned him. Perched on the edge of the faded upholstery, she glittered. The sheen on her hair and her stockings dazzled him. She had left off what Wanda called her war paint, and her face was as innocent and crafty as a stranger’s. She might have passed for thirty; then she turned her head and was no older than twelve. And her dress, soft and plain and cut of some mothlight fabric that shimmered grey and brown and mauve—oh, he wanted to tell her how lovely she was, and he could not utter a word.
He realized she had also been appraising him.
“I love that tie,” she said, and he wondered if she’d loved it on Ben and he said, “It’s Ben’s,” hoping to catch her, but she said, “Oh, is it?” and he knew he’d wear it again the next time he saw her.
Still he could think of nothing to say. They drove three blocks in silence.
“What do you hear from Ben these days?” she asked at last, in an offhand way. She was searching for something at the bottom of her purse.
“Nothing.”
“I’ll never forget that evening I smashed all his stuff. That awful evening.”
“Uh-huh,” said Willie nervously. The memory chilled him.
“I’d like to know why he didn’t go out with me. I’d really like to know.” Her hand went on rummaging frantically through her purse, like a trapped insect.
“He went to visit a girl named Clare Bishop. I don’t know too much about her. Her mother shops at Fine Foods.”
He felt Marsha stiffen at his side.
“She’s in a wheelchair,” he added. “She got hit by a baseball.”
“A baseball!” exclaimed Marsha. “Isn’t that the weirdest thing you ever heard? To end up in a wheelchair because you got hit by a baseball. Who hit her?”
“Ben hit her,” said Willie.
There it was. He kept his eyes trained on the road and went on. “He was fooling around with the old team down at Island Park and he batted one across the river and hit her. And ran.”
“That’s a terrible thing,” said Marsha. “To hit her and run.”
“He didn’t tell her that he was the one who hit her. He didn’t want to be paying her medical bills for the next ten years.”
The steeple of St. Joseph’s rose over the treetops ahead of them.
“Plenty of parking,” said Marsha.
Willie passed all the spaces on the street and left the car in Father Legg’s driveway, being careful to park the back half on the lawn so as not to block it. What else could you do? The new rationing encouraged all sorts of criminal activities. People stole gasoline, tires, even ration books.
The main door was locked, and he remembered it was always locked on weekdays. He was annoyed to find the side door locked also, but for this he had the key, and they stepped from the brilliance of the day into the cool darkness of the sanctuary. For a moment neither of them could see anything. Slowly the inhabitants of this place asserted themselves: the bronze angels holding up the pulpit across from the choir stalls, the golden eagle bearing the lectern on the Gospel side, the altar covered with a purple pall for Lent. The windows across the aisle brightened as the sun breathed life into St. Jerome and his lion, and St. Ambrose, haloed in amiable bees, and others whose faces and friendly beasts he knew but whose names he had forgotten, or forgotten to ask. And overhead shone the vaulted blue ceiling, painted with stars.
“What a beautiful room,” exclaimed Marsha. “Ben never took me anywhere. He promised he’d take me to the Tiptop.”
“You should have seen this place on Easter. Flowers everywhere.”
“The Tiptop is the best restaurant in Detroit. My stepfather says so. He goes to St. Joseph’s,” remarked Marsha, “but not often.”
“I’ve never seen you here,” said Willie.
“Mother and I don’t go to church. I never did and I’m not going to start now.”
Willie felt they were treading on dangerous ground. “Do you want to see the church?” he asked.
“I thought I was seeing it.”
“Oh, there are lots of rooms you haven’t seen.”
They stepped into the parish house, which adjoined the sanctuary. Willie tried the door of Father Legg’s office, but it was locked; the gargoyle door-knocker a parishioner had sent from Canterbury glared at them. The parish office was also locked; they peered through the window at the framed portraits of previous rectors, and he pointed out the row of buttons he used for summoning the children from Sunday school on special occasions.
The library was locked too; had he got the wrong day? It was nearly one o’clock. Fear settled in his stomach.
“Let me show you the downstairs.”
Downstairs, in perfect darkness, Willie felt along the walls for the light switch.
“This is the boiler room,” he heard himself announce, and thought, as the light snapped on, My God, why would she be interested in the boiler room? “We’re collecting stuff for the rummage sale.”
The furnace rumbled at them. They stepped carefully around mason jars, game boards, playing cards, magazines, outgrown clothes, torn piano music. Everything broken or cracked or worn out.
“I love bargains,” said Marsha.
To his joy, a door slammed upstairs.
“People are arriving,” he said and turned off the light.
In the corridor they nearly collided with Father Legg. “Willie, my lad, what are you doing here?” he exclaimed.
“We’re here for the fashion show,” said Willie.
Father Legg lifted his hands in mock horror. “Oh, my dear fellow, I’m terribly sorry, so terribly sorry. The fashion show was yesterday. Now, isn’t that a shame, to have come here especially for it.”
His face burning, Willie allowed Father Legg to esc
ort them outside. “This is your car, is it?” said the priest. He bent over and studied the position of the back wheels, and Willie observed that his white hair was thinning on top. “You didn’t happen to notice if my tulips were up yet, I suppose?”
“No,” said Willie.
He waited till Father Legg disappeared into the rectory, then started the car.
“I promised Clackett I’d be back at work by two. Maybe we can find a place—”
But Marsha laid her hand on his knee and interrupted him. “Don’t worry about it. This could happen to anyone. Just drop me off at Arnoldson’s. I have some shopping to do.”
“The Tiptop. On Saturday, I’ll take you to the Tiptop.”
“I’ll be ready,” she said and smiled at him.
When he reached Clackett’s, the truck was loaded and ready to go. Clackett handed Willie the keys to the truck and asked, “Did you have a good time?”
The place where Marsha had touched his knee tingled, held itself apart from the rest of his flesh, superior to it. Ben never took me anywhere. They would go to the Tiptop. There would be other places she’d want to go, and he would take her, even if it cost him every penny he earned. He pushed open the door to Mrs. Hogarth’s back porch and dropped the box of groceries on the blue wicker table, so she could see it through the French doors and tell her daughter to carry it in. She’d started locking the doors after her daughter came home from school to find an intruder in the living room.
Everybody else left their doors open. He carried their groceries into the kitchen, collected the ration stamps and tokens they left for him, and put away the perishables. He knew their kitchens as well as he knew his mother’s. Mrs. Curtis kept seashells above the toaster. Mrs. LaMont called out, “Is that you, Willie?” and liked to order him around: put the Spam over here, the Dreft over there. Mrs. Johnson’s kitchen was always spotless; her maid bleached the enamel on the icebox and the stove.
Today he was surprised to find her kitchen a mess: dirty dishes in the sink, a burnt pot on the stove, a dishcloth on the floor. No doubt the maid was sick, and Mrs. Johnson was fending for herself. He put away the milk and eggs and picked up the dishcloth and found a twenty dollar bill. Without a moment’s hesitation, he slipped it into his shirt pocket, hoisted the empty delivery box to his shoulder, and closed the door behind him.
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