He didn’t know for sure, maybe it was his imagination but when she said he was intelligent and refined it seemed to him she squeezed his hand. He was awfully scared, almost sick. He didn’t know about the Americans yet, and he didn’t want to do anything wrong. Maybe she had squeezed his hand, but maybe it was as if she was just an older person, or a relative. Maybe it was because she was their neighbor, nothing else. He took his hand away as quickly as possible. He didn’t speak about the room because he knew anything he’d say would be ridiculous. It was a place he’d like to get in and stay in forever, with her. And that was crazy. She was married. She was old enough to be his mother, although she was a lot younger than his mother. But that was what he wanted.
After they saw the house she cooked chocolate and brought them a cup each. The cups were very delicate and beautiful. There was a plate full of mixed pastry, all kinds of it. She made each of them eat a lot; anyway, for every one she ate, she made them eat one, too, so they each ate four, then there were two left. She laughed and said she could never get enough of pastry, so she was going to take one of the last two, and since Tommy was the man present, he ought to take the other. She said that in a way that more than ever excited the boy. He became confused and deeply mournful about the whole thing. It was something new and out of the world. It was like wanting to get out of the world and never come back. To get into the strange region of warmth and beauty and ease and something else that she seemed to make him feel existed, by her voice and her way of laughing and the way she was, the way her house was, especially the way she looked at him.
He wondered if his mother and sister knew about it. He hoped they didn’t. After the chocolate and pastry, his mother asked her to play the piano and sing and she was only too glad to. She played three songs; one for his mother; one for his sister; and then she said, This one for Tommy. She played and sang, Maytime, the song that hollers or screams, Sweetheart sweetheart sweetheart. The boy was very flattered. He hoped his mother and sister didn’t catch on, but that was silly because the first thing his mother said when they got home was, Tommy, I think you got a sweetheart now. And his mother roared with laughter.
She’s crazy about you, his sister said.
His sister was three years older than him, seventeen, and she had a fellow. She didn’t know yet if she was going to marry him.
She’s just nice, the boy said. She was nice to all of us. That’s the way she is.
Oh, no, his sister said. She was nicer to you than to us. She’s falling in love with you, Tommy. Are you falling in love with her?
Aw, shut up, the boy said.
You see, Ma, his sister said. He is falling in love with her.
Tell her to cut it out, Ma, the boy said.
You leave my boy alone, his mother told his sister.
And then his mother roared with laughter. It was such a wonderful joke. His mother and his sister laughed until he had to laugh, too. Then all of a sudden their laughter became louder and heartier than ever. It was too loud.
Let’s not laugh so loud, the boy said. Suppose she hears us? She’ll think we’re laughing at her.
He’s in love, Ma, his sister said.
His mother shrugged her shoulders. He knew she was going to come out with one of her comic remarks and he hoped it wouldn’t be too embarrassing.
She’s a nice girl, his mother said, and his sister started laughing again.
He decided not to think about her any more. He knew if he did his mother and sister would know about it and make fun of him. It wasn’t a thing you could make fun of. It was a thing like nothing else, most likely the best thing of all. He didn’t want it to be made fun of. He couldn’t explain to them but he felt they shouldn’t laugh about it.
In the morning her piano-playing wakened him and he began to feel the way he’d felt last night when she’d taken his hand, only now it was worse. He didn’t want to get up, or anything. What he wished was that they were together in a room like hers, out of the world, away from everybody, for ever. She sang the song again, four choruses of it, Sweetheart sweetheart sweetheart.
His mother made him get up. What’s the matter? she said. You’ll be late for work. Are you sick?
No, he said. What time is it?
He jumped out of bed and got into his clothes and ate and got on his wheel and raced to the grocery store. He was only two minutes late.
The romance kept up the whole month, all of August. Her husband came home for two days about the middle of the month. He fooled around in the yard and then went away again.
The boy didn’t know what would ever happen. She came over two or three times every week. She appeared in the yard when he was in the yard. She invited the family over to her house two or three times for chocolate and pastry. She woke him up almost every morning singing Sweetheart sweetheart sweetheart.
His mother and sister still kidded him about her every once in a while.
One night in September when he got home his sister and mother had a big laugh about him and the neighbor.
Too bad, his mother said. Here, eat your supper. Too bad.
We feel sorry for you, his sister said.
What are you talking about? the boy said.
It’s too late now, his mother said.
Too late for what? the boy said.
You waited too long, his sister said.
Aw, cut it out, the boy said. What are you talking about?
She’s got another sweetheart now, his sister said.
He felt stunned, disgusted, and ill, but tried to go on eating and tried not to show how he felt.
Who? he said.
Your sweetheart, his sister said. You know who.
He wasn’t sorry. He was angry. Not at his sister and mother; at her. She was stupid. He tried to laugh it off.
Well, it’s about time, he said.
He comes and gets her in his car, his sister said. It’s a Cadillac.
What about her husband? the boy said. He felt foolish.
He don’t know! his mother said. Maybe he don’t care. He’s dead, I think.
His mother roared with laughter, and then his sister, too, and then he, too. He was glad Italians laughed, anyway. That made him feel a little better. After supper, though, he was strangely ill all the time. She was a stupid, foolish woman.
Every night for a week his mother and sister told him about the man coming and getting her every afternoon, driving off with her in his Cadillac.
She’s got no family, his mother said. She’s right. What’s the use being pretty for nothing?
He’s an awful handsome man, his sister said.
The husband, his mother said, he’s dead.
They told him about the neighbor and her lover every night for a week, and then one night she came over to pay another visit. She was lovelier than ever, and not sad any more. Not even make-believe sad.
He was afraid his mother would ask about the man, so he tried to keep her from doing so. He kept looking into his mother’s eyes and telling her not to make any mistakes. It would be all right across the tracks, but not in this neighborhood. If she wanted to come out with it herself, she could tell them. She didn’t, though. The boy waited five minutes and then decided she wasn’t going to say anything.
He got his cap and said, I’m going to the library, Ma.
All right, his mother said.
He didn’t say good night to her. He didn’t even look at her. She knew why, too.
After that she never played the piano in the mornings, and whenever she did play the piano she didn’t play the song she’d said was for him.
THE GREAT LEAPFROG
CONTEST
Rosie Mahoney was a tough little Irish kid whose folks, through some miscalculation in directions, or out of an innate spirit of anarchy, had moved into the Russian-Italian-and-Greek neighborhood of my home town, across the Southern Pacific tracks, around G Street.
She wore a turtleneck sweater, usually red. Her father was a bricklayer named Cull and
a heavy drinker. Her mother’s name was Mary. Mary Mahoney used to go to the Greek Orthodox Catholic Church on Kearny Boulevard every Sunday, because there was no Irish Church to go to anywhere in the neighborhood. The family seemed to be a happy one.
Rosie’s three brothers had all grown up and gone to sea. Her two sisters had married. Rosie was the last of the clan. She had entered the world when her father had been close to sixty and her mother in her early fifties. For all that, she was hardly the studious or scholarly type.
Rosie had little use for girls, and as far as possible avoided them. She had less use for boys, but found it undesirable to avoid them. That is to say, she made it a point to take part in everything the boys did. She was always on hand, and always the first to take up any daring or crazy idea. Everybody felt awkward about her continuous presence, but it was no use trying to chase her away, because that meant a fight in which she asked no quarter, and gave none.
If she didn’t whip every boy she fought, every fight was at least an honest draw, with a slight edge in Rosie’s favor. She didn’t fight girl-style, or cry if hurt. She fought the regular style and took advantage of every opening. It was very humiliating to be hurt by Rosie, so after a while any boy who thought of trying to chase her away, decided not to.
It was no use. She just wouldn’t go. She didn’t seem to like any of the boys especially, but she liked being in on any mischief they might have in mind, and she wanted to play on any teams they organized. She was an excellent baseball player, being as good as anybody else in the neighborhood at any position, and for her age an expert pitcher. She had a wicked wing, too, and could throw a ball in from left field so that when it hit the catcher’s mitt it made a nice sound.
She was extraordinarily swift on her feet and played a beautiful game of tin-can hockey.
At pee-wee, she seemed to have the most disgusting luck in the world.
At the game we invented and used to call Horse she was as good at horse as at rider, and she insisted on following the rules of the game. She insisted on being horse when it was her turn to be horse. This always embarrassed her partner, whoever he happened to be, because it didn’t seem right for a boy to be getting up on the back of a girl.
She was an excellent football player too.
As a matter of fact, she was just naturally the equal of any boy in the neighborhood, and much the superior of many of them. Especially after she had lived in the neighborhood three years. It took her that long to make everybody understand that she had come to stay and that she was going to stay.
She did, too; even after the arrival of a boy named Rex Folger, who was from somewhere in the south of Texas. This boy Rex was a natural-born leader. Two months after his arrival in the neighborhood, it was understood by everyone that if Rex wasn’t the leader of the gang, he was very nearly the leader. He had fought and licked every boy in the neighborhood who at one time or another had fancied himself leader. And he had done so without any noticeable ill-feeling, pride, or ambition.
As a matter of fact, no one could possibly have been more good-natured than Rex. Everybody resented him, just the same.
One winter, the whole neighborhood took to playing a game that had become popular on the other side of the tracks, in another slum neighborhood of the town: Leapfrog. The idea was for as many boys as cared to participate, to bend down and be leaped over by every other boy in the game, and then himself to get up and begin leaping over all the other boys, and then bend down again until all the boys had leaped over him again, and keep this up until all the other players had become exhausted. This didn’t happen, sometimes, until the last two players had traveled a distance of three or four miles, while the other players walked along, watching and making bets.
Rosie, of course, was always in on the game. She was always one of the last to drop out, too. And she was the only person in the neighborhood Rex Folger hadn’t fought and beaten.
He felt that that was much too humiliating even to think about. But inasmuch as she seemed to be a member of the gang, he felt that in some way or another he ought to prove his superiority.
One summer day during vacation, an argument between Rex and Rosie developed and Rosie pulled off her turtleneck sweater and challenged him to a fight. Rex took a cigarette from his pocket, lighted it, inhaled, and told Rosie he wasn’t in the habit of hitting women—where he came from that amounted to boxing your mother. On the other hand, he said, if Rosie cared to compete with him in any other sport, he would be glad to oblige her. Rex was a very calm and courteous conversationalist. He had poise. It was unconscious, of course, but he had it just the same. He was just naturally a man who couldn’t be hurried, flustered, or excited.
So Rex and Rosie fought it out in this game Leapfrog. They got to leaping over one another, quickly, too, until the first thing we knew the whole gang of us was out on the State Highway going south towards Fowler. It was a very hot day. Rosie and Rex were in great shape, and it looked like one was tougher than the other and more stubborn. They talked a good deal, especially Rosie, who insisted that she would have to fall down unconscious before she’d give up to a guy like Rex.
He said he was sorry his opponent was a girl. It grieved him deeply to have to make a girl exert herself to the point of death, but it was just too bad. He had to, so he had to. They leaped and squatted, leaped and squatted, and we got out to Sam Day’s vineyard. That was half-way to Fowler. It didn’t seem like either Rosie or Rex were ever going to get tired. They hadn’t even begun to show signs of growing tired, although each of them was sweating a great deal.
Naturally, we were sure Rex would win the contest. But that was because we hadn’t taken into account the fact that he was a simple person, whereas Rosie was crafty and shrewd. Rosie knew how to figure angles. She had discovered how to jump over Rex Folger in a way that weakened him. And after a while, about three miles out of Fowler, we noticed that she was coming down on Rex’s neck, instead of on his back. Naturally, this was hurting him and making the blood rush to his head. Rosie herself squatted in such a way that it was impossible, almost, for Rex to get anywhere near her neck with his hands.
Before long, we noticed that Rex was weakening. His head was getting closer and closer to the ground. About a half mile out of Fowler, we heard Rex’s head bumping the ground every time Rosie leaped over him. They were good loud bumps that we knew were painful, but Rex wasn’t complaining. He was too proud to complain.
Rosie, on the other hand, knew she had her man, and she was giving him all she had. She was bumping his head on the ground as solidly as she could, because she knew she didn’t have much more fight in her, and if she didn’t lay him out cold, in the hot sun, in the next ten minutes or so, she would fall down exhausted herself, and lose the contest.
Suddenly Rosie bumped Rex’s head a real powerful one. He got up very dazed and very angry. It was the first time we had ever seen him fuming. By God, the girl was taking advantage of him, if he wasn’t mistaken, and he didn’t like it. Rosie was squatted in front of him. He came up groggy and paused a moment. Then he gave Rosie a very effective kick that sent her sprawling. Rosie jumped up and smacked Rex in the mouth. The gang jumped in and tried to establish order.
It was agreed that the Leapfrog contest must not change into a fight. Not any more. Not with Fowler only five or ten minutes away. The gang ruled further that Rex had had no right to kick Rosie and that in smacking him in the mouth Rosie had squared the matter, and the contest was to continue.
Rosie was very tired and sore; and so was Rex. They began leaping and squatting again; and again we saw Rosie coming down on Rex’s neck so that his head was bumping the ground.
It looked pretty bad for the boy from Texas. We couldn’t understand how he could take so much punishment. We all felt that Rex was getting what he had coming to him, but at the same time everybody seemed to feel badly about Rosie, a girl, doing the job instead of one of us. Of course, that was where we were wrong. Nobody but Rosie could have figured out that smart
way of humiliating a very powerful and superior boy. It was probably the woman in her, which, less than five years later, came out to such an extent that she became one of the most beautiful girls in town, gave up tomboy activities, and married one of the wealthiest young men in Kings County, a college man named, if memory serves, Wallace Hadington Finlay VI.
Less than a hundred yards from the heart of Fowler, Rosie, with great and admirable artistry, finished the job.
That was where the dirt of the highway siding ended and the paved main street of Fowler began. This street was paved with cement, not asphalt. Asphalt, in that heat, would have been too soft to serve, but cement had exactly the right degree of brittleness. I think Rex, when he squatted over the hard cement, knew the game was up. But he was brave to the end. He squatted over the hard cement and waited for the worst. Behind him, Rosie Mahoney prepared to make the supreme effort. In this next leap, she intended to give her all, which she did.
She came down on Rex Folger’s neck like a ton of bricks. His head banged against the hard cement, his body straightened out, and his arms and legs twitched.
He was out like a light.
Six paces in front of him, Rosie Mahoney squatted and waited. Jim Telesco counted twenty, which was the time allowed for each leap. Rex didn’t get up during the count.
The contest was over. The winner of the contest was Rosie Mahoney.
Rex didn’t get up by himself at all. He just stayed where he was until a half-dozen of us lifted him and carried him to a horse trough, where we splashed water on his face.
Rex was a confused young man all the way back. He was also a deeply humiliated one. He couldn’t understand anything about anything. He just looked dazed and speechless. Every now and then we imagined he wanted to talk, and I guess he did, but after we’d all gotten ready to hear what he had to say, he couldn’t speak. He made a gesture so tragic that tears came to the eyes of eleven members of the gang.
Fresno Stories Page 3