“No,” said several voices at once. “But,” Willie said, “suppose you had to? I mean, with the cops and all?”
“Well, then” someone said. “If it was the cops.”
“But he didn’t.” Two or three of them spoke at once. “And that girl,” said someone.
There was a brief, disapproving silence. Then Joey’s voice rose. “If it was me,” Joey said, “if it was me, I’da done what was right.”
“Yeah, you would.” “Well, you sweet thing.” “I believe that.”
I stopped the car in front of the theater. “Now, look, Laurie,” I said. “Be careful with that money, and don’t go running around town, and I’ll be back at four-thirty and don’t fill up on junk because dinner will be—”
“Sure, Ma, sure,” Laurie said. “My old lady,” he remarked generally. “She’s tipped.”
I bit my lip. “Have a nice time,” I said.
“Yeah.” They climbed out one after another, great feet stumbling, shoving and pushing; they had to go out the door next to Barry, and each one, struggling through, patted Barry on the head as he passed. Barry chuckled, I beamed nervously, trying to memorize hats and jackets to ensure returning our guests in the approximate order they came, and Laurie ordered everyone around. “Hey, wait,” he kept saying.
“Be careful,” I said involuntarily.
Laurie looked at me. “You’re tipped,” he said.
They crossed the street like the legions of Mars coming out of their flying saucer; halfway across, Laurie hesitated, thought, and turned back.
“Hey,” he said, coming to the car window, “I almost forgot. Get some old piece of junk for Joey, will you? Model car or something?”
“For Joey?”
“It’s his birthday, too. Hey, wait up.” And he turned and raced back across the street while I was still saying, “But why didn’t you tell me? I would have—”
I craned my neck out the car window, still asking, and watched them go into the movie, snatching at one another and clearly heading for the popcorn counter. Then, telling myself firmly that they would all probably grow up to be nice boys someday, I dug into my change purse for a penny for the parking meter, gathered Barry out of the car, and headed, still telling myself about how they would surely, surely be nice boys someday, for the toy shop and a piece of junk for Joey.
With the delayed reaction that I believe to be common to all mothers, I still feel toward Joey a mingled irritation and tolerance; he is six inches taller than the other boys and used to beat Laurie up every morning on the way to school. Although he is now a completely accepted member of Laurie’s group of friends, I cannot lose the uneasy feeling that, crossed, Joey is always apt to heave a rock at something, even though he always calls me “Ma’am,” and is one of the few boys who remembers to take off his hat when he comes into the house. I am not altogether successful at concealing my nervousness, so I make a great point of smiling largely at Joey when he comes into the house (he is, after all, two inches taller than I) and at P.T.A. meetings Oliver’s mother and Tommy’s mother and Willie’s mother and I tell one another that a boy like Joey is, after all, someone who needs sympathy, not punishment; that kind of mischief making, we tell one another, is only because Joey feels insecure. Joey lives with his grandmother because his parents are dead, and the day Joey’s older brother went off to reform school Willie’s mother called me and we told each other that if Joey would be made to feel that he was, after all, an accepted member of the group, he might yet grow up to be a credit to his old grandmother. We have all made a point of being very earnest about this, and of course no one can actually prove that it was Joey who dumped the cement into the school furnace, but all the same I could not help feeling slightly wild-eyed at the idea that Joey had birthdays like other children.
However, if Joey was not to receive an irrevocable setback in the process of reformation, I knew I had better get into action right away, so I settled Barry down next to a toy tractor and went into the toy shop phone booth and called Willie’s mother. She thought immediately that something had gone wrong with the birthday party and all the boys were coming over to her house, and I had to reassure her and then tell her that I had just heard that poor Joey had a birthday today, too, and none of us had known about it. She said good Lord, what a time to find out, and what was I planning to do, the poor child? I said I guessed I had no choice, the poor child, but to pick up a gift and an extra cake, since the one I had at home plainly said Happy Birthday to Laurie, and it would be next to impossible to add a postscript in pink icing which would include Joey. She said wait a minute, she was going to ice a cake for the church bake sale, and why didn’t she decorate it for Joey instead? She could give the bake sale the apple pie and pick up something for dessert when she dropped the cake off at my house. I said gratefully that that would just about save my life, because I had enough extra candles, and Joey would never know that his birthday celebration was a last-minute affair. She said the poor kid, she hated to see a kid go without a party on his birthday, and she was sure Helen and Sylvia and Jean would be just sick when they knew, so why not call them, and she’d leave the cake on the kitchen table.
Encouraged, I called Oliver’s mother and said did she know it was Joey’s birthday today, too, and she said that did it, that was all she needed on a day like this was turning out to be, and what on earth could we do? I said that I had just dropped the boys off at the movie, and was still in town, and if she wanted some small remembrance for Joey I would be glad to pick up something.
“Oh, fine, then,” she said. “Get him a book, maybe.”
“A book?” I said. “For Joey?”
“Oh, Lord,” she said. “A knife, then, and say it’s from Oliver and I’ll settle with you when I see you.”
I said I’d also get a nice card and sign it “Oliver” and she asked if the boys were all safely in the movie and I said well anyway they were in, and she said she was glad it was me feeding them tonight and not her.
Then I called Tommy’s mother, and she said that if I got a chance to get into the Boy’s Shop I might pick up a light sweater or half a dozen pairs of socks, because it was her opinion that the poor child had absolutely no clothes. That seemed like such a good idea that I suggested it to Stuart’s mother, who said what a time to find out, and all the boys always needed blue jeans anyway, and I could charge it to her account in the Boy’s Shop if I was beginning to run short of ready cash.
By the time I headed home, then, I had made six phone calls and had seven birthday presents for Joey and a cowboy suit for Barry, which I had somehow gotten myself talked into buying. The cake was sitting on the kitchen table when I got home, and it was a handsome thing, half again as large as Laurie’s, and reading “A very happy birthday to Joey.”
Fortunately the boys were having spaghetti for dinner and I had made it in the morning, so all I really had to do was butter lots of bread and make a plain salad. (“None of that junk you put on salads,” Laurie had said explicitly. “Just lettuce and sliced tomatoes and radishes, and no marshmallows or pineapple or junk.” “I never put marshmallows in a salad in my life,” I said indignantly. “Well, can’t ever tell when you’re going to start,” Laurie said pessimistically.) I set the table with care (“Now, look, don’t try to hand out little baskets of candy or something”), using plain paper napkins, ordinary glassware, my good silver, and my plain dark blue plates, hoping that Laurie would not regard the blue as an attempt at decorating the birthday table. With a certain cynical satisfaction I set a silver dish of salted nuts at each end of the table, a gesture I ordinarily make only at Thanksgiving, when the whole family is assembled. Laurie had conceded that it might not embarrass his friends overmuch if each one found a small favor at his place; he suggested beanshooters or water pistols, but I substituted yo-yos.
Barry had been cordially invited to take a seat next to the birthday boy, and to participate fully in the dinner festivities. My husband had assured us fervently that he had no
intention of coming out of the study, and I had been told sternly that all I had to do was put dinner on the table and not make a pest of myself. (“At Jimmie’s party, his old lady was always hanging around,” Laurie said. “Chees!” “Please do not refer to people’s mothers as old ladies,” I said. “Jimmie’s mother is not much older than—” “Tipped,” Laurie said, sighing.) Entertainment at dinner was to be provided by one of those little cardboard games where everyone punches out a slip of paper describing a trick or stunt to do, and—although I was not, naturally, informed of this, if indeed it was planned ahead of time—by throwing tomatoes. Altogether, as planned, a wholly satisfying and nicely calculated birthday supper, provided I didn’t lose one of the boys in the movies or drop the cake.
At four-thirty I was parked in front of the movie in a space marked “No Parking,” and at four thirty-five the boys began to emerge, one by one, blinking and discarding candy papers. Each one patted Barry on the head as he climbed into the car, and I made nervous estimates about hats, jackets, and the policeman on the corner. When Laurie got in I turned, counted, and said, “Is everyone here? Stuart?”
“Here,” said a voice from the mass in the back of the station wagon.
“Joey?” I said, peering.
“Yeah?”
“Oliver’s not here,” someone said, and several voices added, “No, Oliver, Oliver’s not here, where’s Ollie?”
“He went back for his shoe,” Willie said.
“What happened to his shoe?” I asked, turning. “His shoe?”
“Oh, Ma” Laurie said, and there was a deep silence in the back of the car.
“Look,” I said at last, “someone better go and get him. Because that policeman—”
“Here he comes,” Laurie said. “Hurry up, Ollie, you think the old lady wants to get arrested? Besides, we got to get back and eat, for heaven’s sake.”
“Ice cream,” Barry confided, smiling broadly over the back of the seat. “Ice cream, Laurie.”
Once Oliver was in the car I counted twice more, announced that anyone not now in the car would probably have to walk, and headed home. Barry sang, “Ice cream, ice cream,” softly to himself, and after a minute someone in the back said, “Hey, you remember that guy?”
“Gosh,” someone said, and someone else said, “Boy,” with a sigh.
“And those guys with the space guns—”
“And the octopus—”
“And in the serial—”
“Ice cream, ice cream,” Barry sang.
“And when the cops were searching the house—”
“And the master brain—”
“And boy, was that usher sore.”
I relaxed. Get dinner on the table, light the candles, make a fair attempt at getting sixteen hands washed. I felt a strong glow of satisfaction, too, remembering the presents and cake for Joey. “Ice cream and cake and ice cream,” Barry sang.
Laurie sat at one end of the table and Joey at the other. The boys crowded around while the presents were opened; one or two of them looked mildly surprised to find that they had given presents to Joey, but no one said anything. I stood discreetly in the kitchen doorway, appreciating the rare pleasure of a task well done; Joey was deeply gratified, and went so far as to try on the sweater he had received from Tommy. Later, when the spaghetti was going around and Robert was doing a stunt that required that he imitate a fat lady getting into a telephone booth with an armful of packages, Joey left the table and came into the kitchen, where I was buttering more bread. “Thanks very much,” he said awkwardly.
“Many happy returns,” I said, wondering that I had ever been wary of this pleasant boy.
“Thanks, ma’am,” he said again; he went back to the table and I went on buttering bread; Willie was trying to pat his head and rub his stomach, and Barry’s voice rose anxiously, inquiring where was the ice cream.
I persuaded my husband out of the study to carry Laurie’s cake, and I carried Joey’s.
“Happy birthday,” everyone sang, “happy birthday to Laurie and Joey.”
“Happy birthday,” Barry sang individually, “happy and ice cream.”
I went back into the study with my husband, unaware that it was almost time for the tomato throwing to begin. “Who’s that other boy?” my husband asked.
“It’s little Joey. He’s really getting on so well, now that he’s got friends and he plays baseball now and—”
“That the kid shot out the post office window?”
“—And Mrs. Moore says it’s wonderful the way he’s settled down to his schoolwork with a little encouragement—”
“Turned the Henleys’ cat into the chicken house?”
“You would have been touched to see him opening those presents.”
“I understand,” my husband said, “that if he tries to walk down Pleasant Street, old man Martin’s going to be waiting for him with a shotgun.”
“Of course,” I said, “if you don’t believe that a little kindness and patience—”
“Just make sure you count the silverware,” my husband said.
Barry opened the study door. “When is supper?” he asked. “Come and see all the tomatoes on Laurie.”
Later, disregarding the tomatoes and shreds of lettuce and bread and thin lines of spaghetti and torn paper and nuts and scraps of ribbon and the overturned chairs, I stood at the back door with Laurie, waving goodbye to his guests. “Thank you for a very nice time and for all the presents and cake,” Joey said.
“You’re very welcome,” I said.
“See ya, Joe,” Laurie said. “Gosh,” he added to me as the last bike pulled away, “gosh, that Joey sure gets all the luck.”
“I’m glad you told me,” I said. “I would have felt awful if we hadn’t known it was his birthday, too.”
“Yeah, but you know what he’s getting? His uncle’s taking him out to the racetrack tonight, and Joey gets to bet on every single race. Gosh.” I began to laugh, and Laurie turned and looked at me curiously. “Something funny?” he inquired.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m just tipped, I guess.”
“What?”
“Tipped,” I said. “Don’t tell your father.”
Laurie looked at me for a minute and then he shook his head hopelessly, and reached out and patted me approvingly on the shoulder. “Pretty dingy party, anyway,” he said. “Come on, old lady, let’s start cleaning up this mess.”
JACK THE RIPPER
THE MAN HESITATED ON the corner under the traffic light, then started off down the side street, walking slowly and watching the few people who passed him. It was long past midnight, and the streets were as nearly deserted as they ever get; as the man went down the dark street he stopped for a minute, thinking he saw a dead girl on the sidewalk. She was nearly against the wall of a building; a few feet beyond her was the small sign of a bar, and seeing that, the man started to walk on, and then turned back to the girl.
She was so drunk that when he shook her and tried to sit her up she sagged backward, her eyes half closed and her hands rolling on the sidewalk. The man stood and looked at her for a minute, and then turned again and went down to the bar. When he opened the door and went in he saw that the place was nearly empty, with only a group of three or four sailors at the farther end of the bar, and the bartender with them, talking and laughing. There was one man standing at the bar near the doorway, and after looking around for a minute, the man who had come in walked over and stood at the end of the bar.
“Listen,” he said, “there’s a girl lying out on the street outside.”
The man farther down the bar looked at him quietly.
“I just happened to be passing down this way,” the man who had just come in went on more urgently, “and I saw her, and I think something had better be done. She can’t stay out there.” The man farther down the bar went on looking. “She isn’t but about seventeen.”
“There’s a phone out back,” the man standing down the bar said. “Call the mayo
r.”
The bartender came easily down to the end of the bar, the smile leaving his face as he came. When he got to the end of the bar, beside the man who had just come in, he stood unsmiling, waiting.
“Listen,” the man said again, “there’s a girl sixteen, seventeen lying outside in the street. We better get her inside.”
“Call the mayor,” the man down the bar said, “his number’s in the book.”
“I was just walking by,” the man said, “and she was lying there.”
“I know,” the bartender said.
“Mention my name,” the man down the bar said. “Tell him I told you to call.”
“I saw that she was nice and comfortable,” the bartender said, “and I put her pocketbook beside her, all nice and convenient.” He smiled tenderly. “I hope you didn’t disturb her,” he said.
The man raised his voice slightly. “She can’t keep on lying there,” he said. “You’re not going to say you intend to leave her there?”
“He’ll remember me all right,” the man down the bar said, nodding. “He won’t forget me in a hurry.”
“She likes it there,” the bartender said. “Sleeps there nearly every night.”
“But a girl fifteen, sixteen!” the man cried.
The bartender’s voice became harder; he put both hands on the edge of the bar and leaned over toward the man. “Anytime she likes,” he said, “she can get up and go home. She doesn’t have to stay there. Let her get up and walk home.”
“Not in any sort of a hurry he won’t,” the man down the bar said.
“Comes in here every night and gets drunk,” the bartender went on. “I let her have a beer now and then without money, do you want I should rent her a room, too?” He leaned back again and his voice softened. “Sleeps like a baby, don’t she?” He turned around abruptly and walked back down the bar to the sailors. “Another drunk,” he said to them.
The man turned to the door and opened it, still hesitating. Then he went out. “Don’t forget to tell him what I told you,” the man down the bar called after him.
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Page 9