Pushover

by Orrie Hitt

  “Tell me a business that’s different.”

  She rubbed a hand across her eyes and fluffed out her hair. The odor of her body, cleansed by that cool river water, crept up around us.

  “You don’t have to kid me, Danny.” She stretched out a hell of a good-looking leg and played on the thick mat with her toes. “We don’t make any money except — well, a bit dishonestly. You have to lie and you have to cut corners. I know, Danny. I’ve been with you long enough.”

  “Oh, it isn’t that bad.”

  She turned on the seat, looking at me.

  “But it isn’t security,” she said. “It never will be.”

  I knew what she was looking for, what she wanted me to say. She wanted me to say that I’d throw up the fund-raising racket, get a steady job and sleep in the same place every night. That’s what she wanted me to say. But I wasn’t saying it. I wasn’t saying anything at all.

  I kissed her, hard as I could, on the mouth.

  “Did you mean that kiss, Danny?”

  “I wouldn’t give it to you if I didn’t.”

  “Then give me some more.”

  I did and she put my hand right where it wanted to go.

  “Forgive me,” she whispered, her arm around my neck.

  “It’s the business, Danny, but I know how you love it. I can fight back if it’s the business. But not if it’s another woman. Don’t ever let it be another woman, Danny!”

  She could be positive of that. At least, not one she would know about.

  We didn’t talk any more after that, not for quite a while. I settled down to the work that had to be done and I found that I had plenty of skilled help. She kept kissing me and moaning and praying that it would always be this way. And she made a real effort, highly successful, to please me.

  • • •

  We made a fast return trip to Port Jessup. We’d both gone back into the water for a little while, after that session in the car, and then we’d gotten dressed. It was about eight-thirty.

  “I feel like a hussy,” Madeline confided. “Or I feel the way a hussy ought to feel.”

  “Don’t.”

  “But I do. I feel cheap.”

  And so did I.

  Don’t ask me why and don’t ask me how. I couldn’t tell you. But it came upon me all of a sudden, out there in the water the second time. I looked at Madeline and I saw Sandy instead. I saw Sandy’s smile and the cute little way she had of holding her head to one side. I’d come out of the water feeling ill.

  “I’d take you to dinner,” I said. “But I’ve got this appointment.”

  Madeline yawned and smiled.

  “Oh, that’s okay.” She yawned again, stretching. “I’m not hungry at all. Not now.”

  We reached town and I drove her to River Street. There was a light in her apartment and Al’s car was parked out in front.

  “Guess he fell asleep,” I said.

  “After drinking up everything in sight.”

  I wasn’t intending to go up with her but then I got to thinking how Al got when he took a load on and I went along. Al became a nuisance after he got to the seventh or eighth drink.

  We found Al in the apartment all right, and he was as close to being drunk as a guy can get and still sit up.

  “Peoples,” he greeted us, waving at nobody in particular. He got out of his chair, stumbled over a rug and almost fell down. “Have a drink. Have a damn drink, why doncha?”

  I winked at Madeline. He didn’t seem to notice the bathing suits as she took them over to the bedroom door and fired them inside.

  “Why not?” I wanted to know. “A little spirits to end the day and then we’ll be on our merry way.”

  He sat down on the sofa and stared at me.

  “A poet,” he said. “Moses in the bulrushes and eight hands around! A poet.” He turned and faced Madeline. “You hear that, you gorgeous angel, you. The guy makes up poetry!”

  “Sure, Al,” she said. “Sure.”

  She went out to the kitchen and came back with three glasses and a bowl of ice. She didn’t measure the shots, just poured from the bottle on top of the ice and added a little soda.

  “Cheers,” she said after passing the drinks around.

  Al got up, wavering.

  “What the hell yuh cheerin’?”

  Madeline stood in the middle of the floor, regarding Al with impatience and disgust. She shrugged and lifted her glass.

  “Us,” she said, looking at me. “Who’s better?”

  “Well, the hell with you,” Al said. He wheeled and flung his drink against the wall. The glass broke and the ice cubes bounded back, sliding along the rug. “I ain’t celebratin’ the end of no job that way.”

  “Now, Al — ”

  “I’m tellin’ you,” he said to her. “I’m not.”

  “Look, Al,” I said. “You must have had a day of it. Why not taper off and give yourself a rest?”

  He came over to me, just able to walk.

  “Know what, Danny?” His breath stunk and his clothes smelled of sweat. “I worked this morning, Danny. That’s what I did.”

  He put so much emphasis on each word that you’d have thought he was announcing the coronation or something.

  “Well, good for you,” I said.

  I went over to the window, trying to get away from him, but he wouldn’t let me. He was right there when I turned around, still stinking.

  “I worked where you said. Right where you told me.”

  “All right, Al.”

  “And then I went into this dress shop.” He paused and looked down at his hands, working the fingers, as though he wished he hadn’t been so careless with that glass. “The Cotton Shop. Know where it is?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head sadly.

  “Christ, they don’t sell no cottons in there. People in there wouldn’t know a little ol’ cotton thread from a rubber band. Know what I mean, Danny? Class. C-l-a-s-s. From the brassieres right on down through the panties.”

  “Al,” I told him, “you’re drunk.”

  He nodded and grinned.

  “Drunk,” he admitted. “Sloppy drunk. Drunk and damned glad of it. So damned drunk I’m gonna tell you you’re a no-good, lyin’ son-of-a-bitch, Danny Fulton.” His voice rose. “You hear me?”

  I went to the table and got myself some more whiskey.

  “Al,” I told him again, “you’re drunk. Break it up, will you?”

  He staggered to the sofa and sat down, almost missing it.

  “Get him out of here, will you?” Madeline asked.

  “Sure.”

  I finished the rye and set the glass down.

  “Come on, Al,” I said. “Let’s roll.”

  He shook his head.

  “I ain’t going with you,” he told me. “You ain’t my boss no more. You chickened out.”

  “Al, I’ll slap your head off, you say that again!”

  He was getting me mad.

  “That Cotton Shop,” he said, ignoring me. “If I’d have stayed out of there I’d never have known.” He leaned back, opening his eyes. “Tell me, Danny, you know a Sandy Adams?”

  I felt the fire creep into my guts.

  “Sure,” I admitted. “She’s in charge of this book.”

  “More than the book, Danny.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  He waved me aside.

  “You got her,” he said, squinting at me. “Ain’t that so?”

  That fire in my belly twisted into a solid ball.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  Madeline went over and slapped him in the face.

  “You’ve said enough,” she stormed. “You’ve got no right coming into my place, getting drunk and hollering at Danny. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Are you nuts or something, Al?”

  “He’s getting married to her,” Al said, rubbing at his face. “And he’s quitting the business. I was in that Cotton Shop when she came in and talked to the girl abou
t a wedding dress. I was standing right there and I heard it all. He’s getting out, Madeline. Quitting us. Both of us. And doncha forget it!”

  I wanted to be mad about it, to get sore at Sandy for having talked about it or with Al for having been there, but I couldn’t. It was just one of those things. No matter how good a fisherman you are, you go to the stream often enough and you’ll get your line tangled.

  “I was going to tell you about it later,” I explained. “As soon as I got something worked out.”

  “Hell,” Al said. He got up and shuffled to the door. “You’re on a one-way street and you know it.” He glanced at Madeline. “A half a million bucks they tell me this dame is worth. And he’s going to worry about us? What a crock!”

  “Danny!”

  Al said, “You can go to hell, Fulton. I’m leaving for Scranton.”

  The door started to close after him.

  “Go ahead, you stupid jerk!” I yelled. “You’ll drop dead from ignorance before you get there!”

  The door slammed. Al made a lot of noise going down the stairs.

  “Fool!” I said, sloshing some liquor into a glass. “The stupid fool!”

  I looked around. I was talking to myself.

  She was in the bedroom. I followed her in there. She lay stretched across the bed.

  “Go away!” she sobbed.

  I tried to get her to sit up, tried to talk to her. It wasn’t any use. Every time I spoke or touched her she started to cry all the more.

  “You lied to me this afternoon,” she whispered miserably.

  I hadn’t. I hadn’t said anything to her. But there was no point in arguing about it.

  “Believe me,” I told her. “I don’t know how it happened. I didn’t want it to. It just — did.”

  I was telling her the truth. She didn’t believe a word of it.

  “Go away,” she repeated.

  I hung around for a while, trying to talk it over with her, trying to do something, but she wouldn’t have any part of it. All she did was lie there on the bed, sobbing and shaking. I stuck it out as long as I could.

  “Well, you’ll feel better in the morning,” I said finally. “We’ll kick it around some more then.”

  She rolled over on her back and looked at me for a long time. Her breasts rose and fell and she kept moving her head from side to side.

  “I’m like Al,” she told me. “I’m — finished.”

  “Aw, look — ”

  “No!” she screamed, suddenly sitting up. “Don’t you understand me? Get out! Get out!”

  I stopped in the doorway and lit a cigarette.

  “Be seeing you,” I said.

  She fell across the bed again, moaning.

  I let myself out and went slowly down the stairs.

  It had been a day to forget.

  11

  I TRIED that night to think up some way to get out of the book but it didn’t do me any good. I was late picking Sandy up for our date and we drove straight out to the country club, where the Knights of something-or-other were holding a dance.

  It was a dull affair.

  “These charity things are never fun,” Sandy had warned me.

  Nobody danced very much, though the band was good. There was nothing but talk and a lot of drinks. Sandy introduced me around, telling everybody that I was a writer and that I was doing a book on the history of the city. She made me sound like a real professional and I realized, reluctantly, that this was the way she looked at me, too.

  So it wasn’t any use trying to kill the thing. I had to get it on the market, somehow, and later on, after we were married, I could announce that I was sick of writing and that I wanted to go into some other kind of business. There’d be no hitch then, because I’d be married to her and with half a million bucks you can get into almost anything you decide on.

  For the first time since I’d known her I stayed at the Summer Road house all night.

  The next morning, early, I went downtown to the library.

  “Nice morning,” the girl at the desk said.

  I told her it was and went up to the historical room.

  Madeline had left all of her work on the table, scattered around the typewriter. I went over and sat down and started looking through it.

  She had completed forty pages of manuscript. This figured out to thirty lines on a page or about twelve hundred lines. When this was typed for photo-offset it would be done on legal size paper and it would average sixty-eight lines to the page. Broken down into finished copy, then, there were less than twenty final pages. Add about ten pages for pictures, maybe another ten for ads, plus another five for copyright, dedication and things like that, and I had a total of forty-five to fifty pages. We needed at least sixty-eight.

  I got up and moved around the historical room. There were spinning wheels in there, and a yoke for oxen and more arrowheads than a whole tribe of Indians could use. And there were books, hundreds of books. And newspapers. Some of the papers were so old they were falling apart. After looking at that mess for almost an hour I came to the conclusion I didn’t know up from down or right from left.

  Hell, I thought, I’ll get a bunch of pictures and pad the book out with that. Unusual stuff, something like “Broad Street Yesterday” and “Broad Street Today.” That was it. I’d slam the pictures into it and the suckers wouldn’t know what happened.

  I looked at the manuscript again. The picture switch was as impossible as the situation. She’d stopped writing in the eighteen-ninety period and the city had had plenty of history since that time. The story couldn’t be chopped off that way.

  I sat down and cursed her. I cursed Madeline and I cursed myself and I did the same thing with that louse of an English teacher who’d tossed me out of his class in high school. If he hadn’t been such a fireball I’d have finished the course and I’d be able to get the book patched together somehow.

  I put some paper in the typewriter. I didn’t know the first thing about typing or writing but I’d put out this book even if I had to write it in chalk on the sidewalks.

  By noon, I was a nervous wreck. To begin with the typewriter was an electric and it took me all of ten minutes to find the switch and get it turned on. It wasn’t until after I’d discovered how to make capitals and little letters and to get the thing to space that I discovered the instruction book under a pile of papers.

  I wrote one paragraph before lunch. A four-line paragraph that made about as much sense as the jam I’d gotten myself into.

  I went out to eat and this time I didn’t agree with the girl on the desk that it was a nice day.

  On the way down the street I stopped in at the bank and checked my balance. I’d had almost eight grand transferred from the bank in Waverly and now it was down to seven hundred. I mumbled my thanks to the girl behind the window and crawled outside.

  Jesus, where had it gone? There’d been the car, sure, and a lot of new clothes I hadn’t needed. And the typewriter which had cost almost six hundred. And rooms and food and stuff like that. Still, it seemed to me all that money should have lasted longer …

  I had a glass of iced coffee for lunch. I knew where the money had gone all right. I’d spent it. And I hadn’t been working hard enough on the ads, getting fresh money in.

  Al, I thought, pushing the coffee aside, Al you’re just a bastard to go off and leave me jacked up off the ground this way.

  I tried to call Al from the phone booth but he had checked out of his room, leaving a forwarding address in Scranton. I found his Scranton number in my wallet and had the operator try that. She got him on and he sounded sober enough but when he discovered who it was he hung up on me. I cursed him again and went back outside.

  It was hot, just the way it had been for several days, and there were hardly any people on the street. Those with any sense were inside where it was cool, getting plastered.

  I went down and sat in the park and tried to think. I couldn’t. I had a tiger by the short hairs and it was an uphill pull.


  “Hello, Danny.”

  It was Gloria Collins. She looked mighty cool in a pea-green dress and white sandals.

  “Rest your bones,” I said.

  She sat down beside me.

  “Lunch hour?”

  She nodded and took a bite out of a Hershey bar.

  “Must be my lucky day,” I said. “I was going to look you up.”

  “Were you?”

  I hadn’t been, of course, but now that I’d seen her I’d gotten an idea.

  “I’ve got a job for you,” I said. “A good one.”

  I told her what it was, finishing the book, and that I’d pay her sixty-five a week. She said no. I made it eighty and she still said no.

  “A hundred,” I said finally. “A hundred every week.”

  “Thanks, Danny,” she said. “But, no. I have a good job now. Of course, I don’t make that much money but it’s steady. And I have to have something to count on. I must think of the baby. I don’t believe that Billy will.”

  I tried it again, from another angle. I pointed out how she could do it part-time, in the evenings and on weekends, but that landed on dry ground, too. She said her mother took care of the baby while she worked.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to impose on her further,” Gloria told me. “I’ve caused her enough trouble already.”

  If I’d have thought of it I might have offered to baby-sit for her, I was that desperate, but I didn’t and after a while she left to go back to work.

  On the way to the library I stopped and called Harrison in Middletown. I told him the book was going great, just great, and that we were getting the copy worked up.

  “One thing we run up against in this town,” I said. “Credit. Everybody wants to pay when the thing comes out.”

  He said it went that way sometimes and I gave him my pitch.

  “I may need some credit on this one, my friend. Say, a week or ten days, just until we can get the money in from the ads. I thought I’d call you and give you the scoop on it.”

  He started to blubber. And if you haven’t heard a printer cry you haven’t heard anything yet. He told me about his wife being sick, that he was behind on the payment of his withholding taxes and that his chief source of supply for paper now demanded cash.