Savage Streets

Chapter Two

The country club was owned by the company which had financed Faircrest Hills, and membership was restricted to families living in the development. When John and Barbara Farrell entered the lounge they saw Sam Ward talking to the club’s secretary, a man named Silvers. Ward hurried to meet them, shook hands with Farrell, congratulated Barbara on her dress and then said explosively, “Christ! What a mess! Grace is down with some damn virus infection and I’m trying to get the table rearranged with Silvers.”

“But I saw Grace at the station,” Farrell said.

“Yes, like an idiot she got out of bed to meet me,” Ward said.

“It’s a shame,” Barbara said. “Is there anything I could do for her? You’ve called Dr. Webber, haven’t you?”

“Yes, he gave her some pills and so forth. These things just have to run their course. But I’m damned if I know how to seat everybody with the hostess missing.”

“Could I help?” Barbara asked him.

“Thanks,” Ward said, without much enthusiasm. “I don’t know.” Then he had the grace to add, “You’re supposed to be here to enjoy yourself, Barbara.”

“I will, don’t you worry about that.”

“All right then,” Ward said. “I’ll leave it to you. And thanks a lot. I appreciate this.”

Farrell and Ward turned into the men’s bar, while Barbara and Mr. Silvers hurried into the dining room chattering together like conspirators. Farrell caught the bartender’s eye and said, “Two Scotches, please, Mac. With water.”

“Coming right up,” Mac said, without raising his eyes from his paper. “Just as soon as I dope tin’s race.” Mac was the closest thing the club had to an institution; a stout and breezy man in his middle forties, he treated members with a brusque and sardonic tolerance, as if they were supplicants at a free-lunch counter. He was occasionally a bore, with off-color stories and long-winded interruptions, but on the credit side he mixed excellent drinks, stocked the bar with efficient economy, and turned in a profit to the club at the end of every month. In addition to tending bar, Mac drove a cab mornings in Rosedale, because he had five small children (whose pictures adorned the bar mirror) and he needed all the cash he could lay his hands on to keep his and their heads above water.

“Grace isn’t sick,” Ward said unexpectedly. “You saw her at the station, so you know. The thing is, Andy got in a fight at school today and came home pretty banged-up. It wasn’t anything serious so far as I could judge, but Grace got herself all worked up over it. She refused to leave him with a sitter.” Ward shook his head. “So we had a nice row about that just to get the evening off to a perfect start.”

“Maybe she had a point,” Farrell said. “Was Andy hurt pretty badly?”

“Christ no!” He rapped on the bar and glanced at Mac. “Two Scotches, remember?”

Mac put his paper aside. “You guys are kind of impatient, eh?”

“Who did he have a fight with?” Farrell asked.

“I don’t know. Some kid at school apparently.”

“What was it about?” There was no connection between Jimmy’s stealing and the fact that Andy Ward had got into a fight at school, but Farrell felt an odd, premonitory stir of anxiety; for he realized that Ward, despite his almost belligerent indifference, was more worried than he was letting on.

“It was just one of those things, I guess,” Ward said. “To be truthful I don’t know, but kids are always getting into scrapes. I explained that to Grace. I told her it didn’t amount to anything, but she wouldn’t listen to me.” Ward swore and drummed his fingers on the bar.

“And you say Andy wasn’t hurt badly?”

“Well, he was bloodied up a little, and naturally with Grace carrying on he had to get into the act, too. If she’d treated it casually he probably would have, too.”

Mac put the drinks before them with a careless flourish. “Here you are, gents. Enjoy them because you’re paying for them.”

“Thanks.” Farrell picked up his drink and said to Ward, “That doesn’t sound like Grace. She’s pretty calm, as a rule.”

Ward twisted on the bar stool to face Farrell and the exertion caused his stiff shirt to belly out like a sail. “As a rule, yes,” he said. “That’s what gets me. Of all nights to behave like a nervous schoolgirl, she has to pick this one.”

“Hell, cheer up!” Mac said, smiling affably. “Try a little of that Scotch on for size. No need glooming up the place when you’ve got some good booze in front of you.” He was grinning at Ward as he spoke, his eyes and cheeks shining with a pointless well-being and humor; there was no more malice in his expression than one would find in that of a well-cared-for baby, which was what he reminded Farrell of at that instant — a large, cheerful baby who, to judge from Ward’s growing anger, was about to be turned upside down and given a thorough and unexpected spanking. But there was something else in Ward’s expression, Farrell realized, a deliberateness which suggested that his anger was as much a matter of policy as it was a glandular reflex.

“Mac, I want to tell you something,” Ward said evenly. “Get it through your thick head that you’re a bartender here and not a TV comedian. Do you understand me?”

“Why, hell,” Mac said, smiling uncertainly at the anger in Ward’s face. “There’s nothing to get mad about, is there? Go on, drink up, pal. We’re all buddies here.”

“You don’t understand me. So I’m going to spell it out to you like I would to a child. First of all, don’t ever interrupt me when I’m talking to a member or guest of this club. Got that? Second, my name is Mr. Ward. I’m not ‘pal’ or ‘Jack’ or ’buddy’ or any damn thing else. I’m Mr. Ward to you and make damn sure you remember that. Do you understand?”

Mac’s expression had been changing slowly during this coldly administered rebuke; at first his Hushed features had registered surprise, then embarrassment, and finally a sullenness which was slowly hardening into stubborn anger. “Look, if you’ve got complaints...” He hesitated deliberately before adding, “Mr. Ward. If you got any complaints I’m willing to listen. But I don’t expect to be talked to like some five-year-old kid.”

“Do you want this job?” Ward said sharply. “Well? Speak up.”

“Sure, I want it — Mr. Ward.” This time the pause was not defiant; it was only a thoughtless lapse.

“Okay, if you want the job remember what I’ve just told you. When I come in here for a drink I don’t want it spoiled with a lot of bad jokes and loud interruptions. Got that?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Ward.” Mac was staring stonily over Ward’s head, his big hands hanging straight at his sides.

“Fine. I’m glad you do. Now let me hear you say you’re sorry and that it won’t happen again.”

“I think you’ve made your point,” Farrell said.

“Confession is good for the soul,” Ward said. “All right, Mac. I want an apology, and I want your assurance that this sort of thing won’t happen again.”

The evidence of an eternal and hopeless conflict was evident on Mac’s painfully flushed face; he was (Farrell felt certain) weighing the advisability of telling Ward to go to hell against the cost of flu shots and vitamin tablets, of clothes and food for five children, and his own occasional two-dollar bets and rounds of beer with the boys in his local saloon. The struggle was unequal, and defeat was inevitable. In a tired voice he said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Ward. I didn’t mean to get out of line. It won’t happen again.”

“Fine,” Ward said. “Now how about freshening up these drinks?”

“Right away, Mr. Ward.”

“Well, what did that prove?” Farrell said, as Mac picked up their glasses and went to the end of the bar.

“It proves to him I’m not going to be pushed around,” Ward said.

“It may also prove to him you’re a first-class son of a bitch,” Farrell said.

“So what?” Ward poked a blunt finger against Farrell’s shirt front. “Listen to me. How many characters called Eisenhower a son of a bitch during the war? Three or four million maybe. And right now those guys would get down on their knees and crawl to Washington for the chance to play a round of golf with him. What the hell do I care what Mac thinks about me? That isn’t important. But what I think about him is. Do you get the distinction?”

“Yes, but through a glass darkly,” Farrell said, after taking a sip from his drink. He was irritated with Ward but he couldn’t discover the source of his rancor. In a way Ward had been justified in ticking off Mac, but witnessing it had made Farrell disgusted with himself. So what does that make me, he wondered. A nice guy or a hypocrite? You couldn’t say Ward was right, and then flatter yourself with a lot of noble thoughts about poor old Mac’s feelings. You couldn’t have it both ways.

Wayne Norton drifted into the bar then and to Farrell’s relief the conversation became general. “Looking for the library, eh?” Ward called to him. “Next door to the right, my friend.”

Norton smiled easily. “I might have known where to find you guys. Hi, John, how’re tilings?”

“Fine,” Farrell said. They shook hands and Ward ordered Norton a drink.

“How’s Janey?” Farrell asked Norton. Jane Norton was five months pregnant and Wayne did not take her condition lightly; he discussed her impending travail with an old-fashioned and rather touching gravity, as if he felt the baby was to be delivered by a midwife in a snow-bound chicken coop. “She was a little upset this morning. A little gas, I imagine,” he said with a clinical frown. “I got Junior off to school and let her get a little more shut-eye. I called her at eleven, eleven-thirty actually...” He smiled as Ward gave him a drink. “And she was feeling better. And she felt fine all afternoon.”

“That’s great,” Farrell said, somewhat too heartily.

“She’s been a damn good sport about it, I must say,” Norton said. Wayne Norton was a devoted husband and energetic father; he shopped with Janey on Saturdays, and spent his spare time assisting his son at various healthful projects, or else repairing or building something for the house in his basement workshop. In addition to all this, he was slender and handsome, with thick dark hair, an athlete’s sure grace of movement and the well-sculptured, carefully undistinguished features of a photographer’s model. But in spite of his good looks and the rather sensual curve of his mouth, his eyes never strayed very far away from his wife, Janey, and he usually managed to sit beside her at parties, holding one of her hands in a casually affectionate manner.

Ward finished his drink and glanced at his watch. “Well, we’d better get going. I hope Barbara’s got the table figured out.”

“Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” Farrell said.

“If the Detweillers behave,” Ward said. He sighed as he signed for the drinks. “Damn it, I’ve got a sense of humor like anyone else, but a lot of things just aren’t amusing.”

The dinner was successful. There were no incidents and the Farrells were home by eleven-thirty.

The following morning Farrell was knotting his tie at the mirror in his bedroom when Jimmy came to the doorway and said, “Dad, I was thinking about what you said yesterday — you know, about my birthday. Can I show you something?”

“Of course.” He smiled at his son’s reflection in the mirror. Jimmy was dressed for school in jeans, a sweater and leather jacket, and he was obviously excited; there were spots of color in his cheeks and his eyes were bright and expressive. “Well, what is it?” he said.

Jimmy took the folded page of a magazine from his pocket. “It’s pretty expensive,” he said.

“Let’s see,” Farrell said. He sat down on the bed and put an arm around Jimmy’s thin shoulders. “What have we got here?”

“Look!” Jimmy spread out the page on his father’s knee. It was an advertisement for a course in physical development. A grinning muscular young giant held a pair of immense dumbbells over his head, and the copy promised everyone from eight to eighty the prospect of prodigious strength and vigorous health for an investment of less than ten cents a day.

“So you want to be a weight-lifter, eh?”

“The whole set costs forty dollars,” Jimmy said. “And there’s a book that shows you just what exercises to do. Is that too much money?”

“I think we might swing it,” Farrell said. “The only thing is, this equipment is too heavy for you right now. But I’ll tell you what. Next Saturday we’ll go downtown and look through the sports store. We’ll find some weights that will fit you. Okay?”

“Yes — that’s fine.”

Farrell looked down at him. “When did you get this bug for weight-lifting?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to be strong.”

“Well, that’s normal enough. But if I were you I’d save some time for baseball and football.” Farrell returned to the mirror to brush his hair. “It’s a date for Saturday then, okay?”

Jimmy didn’t answer and Farrell glanced at him in the mirror. He saw that Jimmy was staring at the personal effects which he customarily heaped on his chest of drawers when he undressed for the night — cigarette case and lighter, car keys, wallet, loose change and bills. Jimmy seemed unaware of the silence in the room. He sat tensely on the edge of the bed, as if mesmerized by the silver coins gleaming under a yellow ray of sunlight.

Farrell willed himself to turn his eyes away from his son’s thin, tense features. He stared at his own reflection in the mirror. He was pale, he saw. He made his lips form a smile. “Well, we’ll have a nice stag time of it Saturday,” he said. “Okay, Jimmy? After our shopping we’ll have lunch in a Chinese restaurant. How does that sound?”

“That will be fine.”

He heard Jimmy stand, heard the soft scuff of his shoes on the carpeting, and knew he was moving slowly toward the dresser. Farrell’s mouth was suddenly dry. “Jimmy, are you watching the time?” he said, still forcing himself not to look at the boy.

“It’s all right.”

“Well, how about seeing if Angey is ready? Go downstairs and tell her to rustle it up a bit. Okay?”

Jimmy didn’t answer and Farrell, against his will, glanced quickly at his son’s reflection in the mirror. He saw Jimmy’s hand move out in a darting motion and take a dollar bill from the crumpled heap on top of the dresser. Farrell let out his breath slowly. He looked at himself, saw the long-jawed face, the grave eyes, the faint scar on his forehead from a football cleat in a college game. But it was the face of a stranger now, closed with anger, with bitter lines hardening the eyes and mouth.

“So it’s a date for Saturday, eh?” he said. “A day in town with the old man.” The first coldness came into his voice. “We’ll have fun, won’t we?”

“Sure, Dad. It’ll be fine.”

Farrell turned around. Jimmy was standing in the doorway, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. “I’d better get going,” he said.

“Put it back, Jimmy,” Farrell said, and the anger in his voice made the boy start. “You hear me? Put it back.”

“I didn’t take anything. Please, Daddy.” Jimmy’s eyes were bright with fear. “I swear it.”

“Don’t lie about it. I saw you in the mirror.” Farrell was making an attempt to control his anger; he knew that would not help matters. “Put the money back on the dresser and sit down.”

Jimmy took a step toward him, his hands fluttering in helpless little gestures. “Please don’t tell Mom,” he said in a whimpering voice. “You don’t have to tell her. I won’t do it any more. I swear.”

“She knows about it already,” Farrell said. “She knew right from the start. Did you think you could get away with this sort of thing indefinitely?”

“Can’t we tell her something to... to fix it up?” Jimmy’s eyes were imploring. “Could we tell her it was a joke?”

“A joke? What do you think is funny about lying and stealing?”

Barbara’s footsteps sounded on the stairs, moving with urgency and purpose. “What’s the matter, John?” she called. “What are you shouting for?”

“Please, please,” Jimmy cried softly; his face was transfixed with desperate shame and fear. “Don’t let her come in. Please.”

“It’s too late for that,” Farrell said.

Barbara stopped in the doorway. She looked anxiously from Jimmy to Farrell. “What’s all this about?”

A hideous little noise sounded in Jimmy’s throat. He turned and threw himself down on the bed, his body shaking with furious sobs. “You wouldn’t help me, you just wouldn’t,” he cried weakly.

Barbara sat down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Now, now, what’s all this about?” she said.

“I saw him take a dollar from my change on the dresser,” Farrell said. “I told him to put it back, and he denied taking it.”

“Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy,” Barbara said, and drew his head close to her breast. “It isn’t so terrible. But why didn’t you ask us if you needed money?”

“I had to have it,” Jimmy said, his voice strained and muffled against her body. “I had to. I couldn’t go to school without it. I couldn’t.”

“But why not, darling?”

“They said I couldn’t. They said I had to bring it.”

Barbara glanced at Farrell, her eyes puzzled and anxious. He sat beside Jimmy and put a hand on his shoulder. “Now what’s all this, Jimmy,” he said quietly. “Who told you that you couldn’t come to school without money?”

“Some kids. They said I had to pay them.”

“And that’s what you did with the money you’ve taken. Given it to these boys?”

“I had to. They made me.”

“All right, Jimmy, let’s don’t worry about the money now,” Farrell said. “The main thing is for you to start from the beginning and tell me the whole story.”

“I told you, I told you,” Jimmy said in a voice thick with emotion.

“There’s nothing to be frightened of,” Farrell said. “Sit up and dry your eyes. I want to get to the bottom of this mess. I want to know who these boys are, how much money you’ve given them, where they live — everything.”

Barbara released him reluctantly and he sat small and hunched between them, his swollen eyes fixed with bright intensity on the carpet at his feet. “I don’t know them,” he said. “They’re just kids, that’s all.”

“How many of them are there?”

“There’s two.”

“Do they go to Rosedale Consolidated?”

“I don’t know. They’re always hanging around there.”

“But they’re not in any of your classes, eh?”

“No.”

“Well, do you know their names?”

Jimmy’s eyes shifted along the carpeting. “One of them is called Jerry. I don’t know about the other one.”

“How old are they? How big are they?”

“They’re like me, I suppose. I mean, they’re my age.”

“How much have you given them?”

“Twelve dollars. But four of it was my own money, my allowance.” He began to cry again, and Barbara took him in her arms and rocked him slowly. “It doesn’t matter, darling. You couldn’t help it. Now, now — it’s all right.”

Farrell paced the floor, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead. “It’s not all right,” he said. “It’s damn far from it.” Angey’s high and righteous voice sounded from the foot of the stairs. “Mother! I’m not going to wait for Jimmy any longer. He’ll be late!”

“Run along, honey,” Barbara called. “He’ll catch up with you.”

“He’ll be late, you watch!” The door slammed as she left the house and Farrell went to the windows and looked down into the street. Angey was hurrying to meet the Sims children, blonde hair shining above the felt collar of her blue coat. Cute and pretty, Farrell thought, as he turned and glanced around the bedroom; everything cute and pretty, wall-to-wall carpeting, the aroma of bacon and coffee, scrubbed, handsome children and Barbara in a peach-colored housecoat; everything wonderful, everything serene and gracious.

He tried to stay calm, tried to maintain a judicial, sympathetic attitude, but it was just about too much for him. By the books he was wrong, of course; old-fashioned, a century behind the times. The progressive, enlightened parent would place the boy’s future integration far above the sordid but essentially unimportant fact that he was a liar and a thief. But Farrell was ashamed of his son; it disgusted him to look at his tear-streaked face, his swollen eyes, to hear him confess that he bad been bullied into stealing by a pair of tough, aggressive youngsters who probably had spotted him for the softest touch in the neighborhood.

“Let’s go over this carefully now,” Farrell said. “Two boys around your size and age, one named Jerry and the other without a name at the moment. They go to Rosedale Consolidated and they’ve made you pay them twelve dollars up till now. How much more did they want?”

“Three more. I was supposed to pay them fifteen.”

“I see.” Farrell kept his tone noncommittal. “Then you’d be a member in good standing, dues paid up and so forth. Is that it?”

“I don’t know.” Jimmy’s eyes were still fixed with a miserable intensity on the carpet at his feet. “They said I couldn’t play football in the afternoon any more... until I paid them I couldn’t play any more.”

“So that’s why you’ve been moping around the house,” Farrell said. “This beats anything I’ve ever heard of. You can’t play in front of your own home until you’ve paid them fifteen dollars. Did they bother anyone else at school?”

Jimmy shook his head. He wasn’t crying any more; he seemed beyond tears, stunned into a helpless inertia.

Barbara said, “Jimmy, why didn’t you tell us about this before?”

“I was scared.”

Farrell said, “Why didn’t you take a swing at these characters?” He couldn’t keep the irritation and anger from his voice, and Barbara looked at him sharply and said, “Well, that’s not important now.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Farrell said. Jimmy had stolen because he had been afraid not to; that was pretty obvious. And Farrell wasn’t sure which disappointed him more, the fact that his son was a thief or the fact that he was a coward. “Listen to me, Jimmy,” he said, trying to put some warmth in his voice. “We’re going to take this problem to the police and they’ll straighten it out. But there’s another problem here the police can’t solve. That problem is yours, Jimmy, and only you can solve it.”

Jimmy was watching him closely, Farrell saw, and under the swollen lids his eyes looked like mere pinpoints of tension. Jimmy said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I can’t stand by your side every minute of the day and night,” Farrell said. “Neither can your mother, neither can the police. And eventually these kids will start bothering you again. They think you’re a soft touch. So unless you stand up to them they’ll make your life miserable. But tell them to go to hell just once, and you’re in the clear. It might cost you a black eye but I’ll guarantee you won’t mind that. You can hold your head up and laugh at them. They’re bullies and bullies always have a big gutless streak running underneath the big talk.”

Farrell hesitated; was he telling Jimmy the truth? Or was he simply handing him pap, giving him an injection of verbal glucose? Tell them to go to hell once and you’re in the clear. Adults didn’t buy these inspirational shots in the arm, so why should kids? Tell the boss to go to hell and you got fired. And was it an inevitably provable theory that all bullies were cowards? Wolverines were bullies and so were tigers and sharks. There were bullies in Farrell’s office, and the people who stood up to them simply got kicked in the teeth for their pains.

Farrell glanced at Barbara. “I think maybe you’d better drive him to and from school today.”

“What did you think I planned?” she asked drily. “Buy him a bow and arrow and let him swing through the trees?”

Jimmy said, “Mommy, I don’t want you to take me to school. I’ll be all right.”

Farrell glanced at him. He seemed tense and nervous, but there had been an edge of determination to his voice. “You want to handle this yourself, is that right, Jimmy?”

“Yes.”

“Stop it, both of you,” Barbara said. “I know you’re heroes, but I’m not. Wash your face, Jimmy. I’m driving you to school. And I’m going to talk to the principal about this business. Before anybody starts fighting we’ll find out exactly who and what we’re supposed to be fighting.” She tousled his hair and said, “Hurry now, while I change.”

Farrell checked the time as he slipped on his jacket. “You’ll have to run me to the station. I don’t have time to walk.”

She had changed into slacks, kicked off her slippers and stepped into a pair of brown loafers. “Sure, let’s go. The fighting Farrells. Dauntless and heroic to the end.”

“You think I was wrong?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She was frowning as she pulled on a car coat, and pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “Not really, I must admit. I’d like to take those two kids by the back of their necks and knock their stupid heads together. That’s how tolerant and progressive I am. Well, are you all set?”

In the afternoon Farrell called Barbara from the office. She was in good spirits; she had had a reassuring talk with Mr. Davidson, the principal of Rosedale Consolidated. There was no gang activity in the school, no trouble at all in fact, except the normal, spontaneous frictions that developed among groups of boys and girls sharing the same playground space and equipment. But Mr. Davidson had promised to investigate the matter, and ask the Rosedale police to detail additional patrolmen and police cars to the immediate vicinity of the school. It was a good start, Barbara felt, and Farrell agreed with her.

There was a plans meeting on Atlas refrigerators at four o’clock, Farrell’s last chore for the day. Jim Colby, the account supervisor, presided at the head of the long table in the soundproof conference room. From where Farrell sat there was a panoramic view of rooftops, skyscrapers and the iron webbing of buildings under construction, hazy and insubstantial in layers of rolling blue smoke and fog. Farrell enjoyed the view and a cigarette. Colby did not look to him for original thinking. Farrell was a workhorse of a writer, valuable on service brochures, point-of-sale booklets and laboriously accurate operating instructions — the man at the long oar, was Colby’s phrase for Farrell.

Jerry Weinberg and Clem Shipley, both alert hustlers, were present and a suggestion of Weinberg’s — to image the refrigerator as the heart of the home and feature it against backgrounds of fireplaces and toddlers in footed pajamas — had earned a thoughtful nod from Colby, and his approval had stimulated Weinberg into a tense and insistent elaboration of his idea.

“You see...” He adjusted his glasses and took a sheaf of papers from an inside breast pocket. “I’ve taken a little survey among friends of mine, and I came across this fact, which I consider significant. They’re married men for the most part, with two or three children, and they live either in the suburbs or in good housing developments on a short commute. We’d need a larger sample, of course, if we decided to use this thinking, but at any rate here’s the pattern of these friends of mine when they get home at night: the kitchen or the dining alcove is the place cocktails are usually served — and the why of this is what’s significant, it seems to me. First of all, a man likes to be close to his wife at the end of the day, to talk to her about what happened at work and so forth. The living room is usually full of kids watching TV, and the wife is usually in the kitchen anyway, putting the finishing touches on dinner. So her husband joins her there with a drink. The steak is broiling, there’s the aroma of good food in the air, everything is warm and cozy and secure — a soothing combination of physical and psychological satisfactions that makes a man relax from the tensions of his work. This is the heart of the home — the kitchen.” Weinberg glanced alertly around the table. “You know, the old colonial homes had what they called a keeping room — this was the warmest room in the house, with the stove and fireplace in it, and this was where the family sewed and read and ate, where the kids got their Saturday night baths, where they repaired harness in the bitter winter weather, where they...”

“Yes, I understand,” Colby said. “So?”

“Well, my idea is — what about re-creating one of those beautiful old keeping rooms in a photograph? Huge stone fireplace, spinning wheel, thick-beamed ceiling, brass pots and pans shining in the firelight. People naturally. Kids, a grandmother.” Weinberg slapped the top of the table. “And right in the middle of this beautiful, lovely antique room there’s a shining model of the Jet-chilled Atlas right where it belongs, in the heart of the home.”

Clem Shipley said, “You know, we had a room something like that in my grandfather’s place in Maine. At night the whole clan checked in for cocktails and...”

But Weinberg had the ball and was breaking for the open field. “Excuse me, Clem,” he said, “but I’d like to circle just one point. Once we establish that the refrigerator is in the most important room of the house — the heart of the home, that is — then we can sell hard on the kind of refrigerator to put in that room.”

“Yes, I see that,” Colby said. “How about doing a memo on this? Give me all your thinking. Well...” He put his hands on the table. “I’ll see you guys around.”

The day was still fine when Farrell got home that evening. In the vacant lot beside the Sims house six or eight boys were playing football. Bobby Detweiller waved and called to him: “How about throwing us some passes, Mr. Farrell?”

“Okay, I’ll get a sweater. Where’s Jimmy?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Farrell.” The young faces turned up to him seemed curiously blank, he thought. “He told us he’d come out.”

“Well, I’ll see what’s keeping him,” Farrell said.

Angey was watching television in the study with two of her friends, and Barbara was in the kitchen making a salad. He kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Where’s Jimmy?”

“Upstairs. Studying or moping, I don’t know which.”

“Why isn’t he out playing football?”

“I didn’t see any point in pressing him about it.”

“I’ll go and have a talk with him.”

Jimmy was at his desk, the lamplight shading his thin, intense face. Farrell said, “I just told your pals we’d be out to play a little ball. You’d better put on a sweater.”

Jimmy looked up quickly at him, his fine eyes bright with caution. “I don’t really feel like it, Dad. It’s okay if I just study, isn’t it? I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“You can do it after dinner, I think.”

“Gosh, do I have to?”

“Yes, you’ve got to,” Farrell said evenly. “Because you’re afraid. Isn’t that right?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“I think I do,” Farrell said. “They told you that you couldn’t play football until you’d given them fifteen dollars. And you only gave them twelve. I don’t blame you for being worried. But we’re not going to put up with that land of pressure.”

“Are you going out, too?” Jimmy said.

“Yes, of course.” Jimmy’s nervousness exasperated him, but he kept his tone pleasantly neutral. “So get a move on.” He went into his bedroom, removed his suit coat and pulled on a frayed woolen sweater, a relic of his college days; it was a letter sweater and the front of it still showed the faded area where a chenille monogram had been cut away a long time ago.

When he returned to the hallway Jimmy was waiting for him at the head of the stairs. Farrell put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I haven’t bothered you with too many fatherly talks in the past, have I?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Well, now it’s time for a short one. I’m making you do something you don’t want to do. If you were my size you might tell me to go to hell. But I’m bigger than you are, so you’ve got to do what I say whether you want to or not. Perhaps you don’t see any difference now between me and those kids who’ve been bothering you. Is that right?”

“No, I don’t feel that way about you.”

“I’m glad you don’t. As your father I sometimes have the unpleasant job of insisting you do things you’d rather not do. I try to use my best judgment and that’s all I can promise you for now and in the future. And in this case I believe it would be foolish for you to hide in here because a pair of bullies have told you you can’t go out. So let’s go.”

In the vacant lot the boys were waiting for him, and he threw passes for ten or fifteen minutes, enjoying their yelping, self-important excitement. Jimmy seemed to have come out of his depression, he thought; he was clamoring for his turn as frantically as the others, eyes bright with pleasure, his thin face flushed with the cold wind.

The last sunlight faded and the sky had turned slate gray. There was a smell of burning leaves on the wind, and the boys’ shrill voices pierced the dying day like the crying of birds. The homes along the quiet, tree-shaded street were lighted now and the soft, yellow illumination fell in pale, rectangular bars across well-tended lawns and shrubs.

Time was running out; there was just enough light for a short game. He called for the ball and told the boys to choose up sides. Bobby Detweiller kicked the ball toward him, but in his exuberance misjudged the distance and the football sailed over Farrell’s head and bounced out to the sidewalk. Several of the boys went streaking after it, excited as dogs on the trail of a rabbit, but something suddenly checked their clamor and brought the scrambling race to a halt. Farrell turned around and saw two husky teen-agers standing on the sidewalk grinning at the boys. One of them had retrieved the ball; he held it at his side, negligently, in one big hand. He was almost as tall as Farrell, with shining blond hair and a look of vacant, unintelligent energy in his broad, blunt face. In spite of the weather he wore only a white T shirt which was tucked into the belt of his tightly pegged blue jeans. He was built like a weight-lifter, with muscles that pulled the T shirt around him as tightly as a second layer of skin. The second boy was equally tall, but his body was flat and slender and controlled; he looked as if he could move very quickly if he wanted to. But his manner was lazy and negligent; a cigarette slanted across his mouth, and he tilted his head slightly to let the smoke drift up past his half-closed eyes. He looked weary and bored as he stared down at the boys, an ironical smile playing at the corner of his mouth. His skin was darkly tanned, and his hair was jet black. He wore jeans, a red sweater with an Indian head sewn on the front of it, and brightly polished black boots.

Farrell smiled at them. “Nice stop,” he said.

“Well, thanks, but it wasn’t really spectacular,” the blond boy said. He grinned at his companion. “Kind of routine, wasn’t it?”

“Well, I don’t know.” He frowned, judiciously. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Run of the mill, I’d call it. You saw the ball bouncing along toward you, and you just picked it up. Nothing to it really.”

“Yeah, that’s right. You do the play-by-play real good.” He grinned at Farrell. “It was just bouncing along on the ground the way a football does, taking a crazy little jog every now and then.”

“That’s because a football isn’t round,” the other boy said, glancing at him from the corners of his eyes. “It’s different from a basketball, you see. A basketball now, it rolls along in a nice, straight line.”

The blond boy laughed softly. “I never thought of it that way.”

Farrell glanced at his watch. There wasn’t much time left and their elaborate leg-pull was getting on his nerves. “All right, let’s have the ball,” he said.

“Well, give him the ball,” the boy in the red sweater said. “Go on, you heard him.”

“Why should I do all the work?” The blond boy pitched the ball expertly to his companion. “You give it to him.”

The dark boy grinned and flipped the ball back to his friend. “You found it, you give it back,” he said. “That makes sense, doesn’t it?” He smiled at Farrell. “Doesn’t it, Mister? You tell him it makes sense, tell him real nice, and he’ll give you the ball.”

“Tell him real nice, eh?” Farrell said slowly. With his hands on his hips he glanced up and down the darkening street, not quite sure of what he was looking for; the sidewalks were empty and the houses snugly bright against the dusky shadows, and Farrell suddenly realized that he had been hoping to see Sam Ward or Bill Detweiller or any of his neighbors in the street. Detweiller usually showed up at the tag end of a game to collect Bobby, and there were times when Sam Ward, cheerfully ludicrous in a peaked fishing cap and sweat shirt, would amble out for a few minutes exercise before dinner.

The two big teen-agers were flipping the ball back and forth between them now, the blond shouting, “You give it to him!” and the boy in the red sweater yelling, “Don’t be so lazy, you big stupe!” and underneath the excitement in their voices ran a hard thread of mockery. Farrell saw that they were watching him alertly from the corners of their eyes.

The half-dozen smaller boys were huddled together in a group at the edge of the lot. He said to Jimmy, “Do you know these fellows?” But Jimmy shook his head quickly without looking at him.

Farrell did not know what to do. The situation was absurd and infuriating. “All right, a joke’s a joke,” he said, walking toward them. “But you’re holding up our game.” He had timed his approach to intercept the ball, but the blond feinted a pass, checking it at the last instant, and Farrell’s leap into the air was futile; when he landed heavily on the sidewalk, stinging the soles of his feet, the blond boy casually lobbed the ball back to the youth in the red sweater.

“Here’s a nice game,” he said. “Piggy keep-away.”

The two boys trotted down the lot, kicking their heels friskily. “Come on, Mister,” the big blond called over his shoulder. “Don’t you want to play?”

Bobby Detweiller said, “It’s getting late, Mr. Farrell. I got to go in.” He turned and hurried toward his home, and the two Sims boys ran after him, their legs pumping whitely in the gathering dusk.

Farrell walked toward the end of the lot where the two husky teen-agers were grinning at one another and throwing the ball back and forth with lazy skill. Farrell felt the uneven stroke of his heart and the heat of anger and embarrassment in his face. He knew he was being made a fool of. They were faster than he was, and could keep the ball away from him indefinitely. But if he demanded the ball and they told him to go to hell — what could he do then? Call the police? And tell them what? “Officer, a pair of youngsters won’t give me back my football. Would you send over the riot squad, please?”

Farrell stopped about twenty feet from them and put his hands on his hips. “You’re pretty good at this game,” he said.

“Gee, thanks, Mister,” the blond said.

“It figures. It’s a game for girls. Like beanbag and hopscotch. It requires a certain limpness of wrist, if you know what I mean.”

The dark boy in the red sweater studied him with indifferent eyes. “Trying to make us mad, eh?” He nodded at his companion. “This is psychology, see.”

“I could take that ball away from you in a game of tackle,” Farrell said. “Want to try me?”

The blond smiled slowly. “Sure, let’s give it a whirl, Mister.”

“He’s suckering you,” the boy in the red sweater said. “It’s psychology like I told you. He’s got you worried. So you got to prove something to him.” He grinned suddenly. “Don’t blame me if you get hurt.”

“No, I won’t blame you,” the blond boy said. He was grinning, too. “Let’s go, eh?”

They trotted toward him at an angle, the big blond running interference, the boy with the ball trailing alertly behind him, feinting a breakaway every now and then and obviously waiting for a chance to sprint past Farrell into the open. Farrell drifted sideways with them, trying to cut them off and force them to change direction; when they did that he could check the blond with his hands, and then drive into the ball-carrier.

The blond boy veered toward him, moving with a look of lazy power, his body bent in a crouching position and his weight riding easily on the balls of his feet. Six feet behind them the boy in the red sweater was slowing down, bouncing from side to side on springy legs, calculating the narrowing area Farrell had forced him into along the edge of the lot.

Farrell felt sure he had him; the boy had come to a dead stop to change directions. He moved in swiftly, hands ready to check the blond, legs ready to drive at the ball-carrier. But something went wrong and it went wrong so fast that Farrell was only conscious of his hands missing their target, and then a jolting blow in his stomach that knocked the wind out of him, and finally the cold scrape of stubble on his face as he hit the ground. When he rolled over and sat up the two boys were a dozen yards beyond him, laughing with exuberant good humor.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the boy in the red sweater said. “Treating an old man like that. You should show some respect for his psychology, at least.”

“He rolled kind of like a football, didn’t he?” said the blond boy. “End over end, nice and crazy. Next time let’s roll him like a basketball, smooth and easy, I mean.”

Farrell got to his feet and brushed the dirt and clinging leaves from his trousers. He was badly winded, and there was a cut at the comer of his mouth; he could feel the blood welling warmly against his lip. For some giddy and irrelevant reason he thought of the plans conference in the agency that afternoon, and Weinberg’s talk of oral satisfaction and keeping rooms. He got slowly to his feet. His side hurt and he had the feeling that he had eaten too much lunch. “Nice going,” he said. He took a slow, careful breath and smiled. “Let’s try it again, eh?”

“A glutton,” the blond said, shaking his head.

Farrell’s smile was for Jimmy’s benefit; he didn’t feel like smiling at all. Grin and bear it. More verbal glucose. Stand up to bullies. Hit ’em and they fall apart.

They were trotting toward him again, and he wiped his hands on his trousers and moved slowly to meet them. His muscles were stiff and he knew that his reflexes were not very reliable; it might have been in another existence that he had been able to do this sort of thing efficiently. He had played three years of college football and had been an all-conference end in his last season. A succession of coaches had drilled the fundamentals of the game into him until he could play his position from memory. But it was so damn long ago, he thought, and remembered with faint surprise the curious sense of futility and loss he had experienced the night before, the directionless nostalgia, the vague self-pity that had crystallized into the prosaic realization that time was passing and he was no longer young.

They were on top of him then, running fast this time, and Farrell had no time to think of what he was going to do; instinctively his hands went out to check the shoulders driving at his stomach, and instinctively he knew he was too late. His knee came up in a protective reflex then, smashing into the blond’s face. A surprised gasp of pain sounded and then Farrell was free, the blond sprawling at his feet, the boy in the red sweater exposed and vulnerable as he tried to reverse his field and cut back behind him.

Farrell took no chance on missing him; he tackled him high, well above the waist, and pulled him sprawling to the ground. The impact jarred the ball from his arms, and Farrell scrambled over him, scooped it up and got to his feet. He was breathing very hard. “I told you this was a grown-up game,” he said.

“The referee would have blown a whistle on you for that,” the blond boy said. He stood slowly and rubbed his chest. There was a smear of blood and dirt on his face, but he seemed more puzzled than angry.

“That’s psychology,” the boy in the red sweater said. He grinned at Farrell but the smile didn’t touch his eyes. “A great big knee in the puss. An Irish uppercut, we call it.”

“It happens to wise guys,” Farrell said. “But not often enough, unfortunately.” For an instant he regretted his tone; their judgment was probably worse than their intentions, he thought. “So let’s chalk it up to experience, eh?” he said.

“Experience, eh?” The boy in the red sweater dusted dirt from his trousers. There was an indulgent little smile on his lips. “Yeah, you learn from experience, come to think of it. Let’s roll, Jerry. Dad here is going to make smart boys out of us.”

Farrell watched them as they sauntered across the lot to the sidewalk. Jimmy ran over and caught his hand. “You showed ’em, Dad, you showed ’em,” he said.

“Sure,” Farrell said, and patted his head. He was still breathing hard.

“Boy, you knocked ’em over like a pair of dummies,” Jimmy said, as they crossed the street.

Farrell stopped at the sidewalk and looked after the two boys. It was almost dark, but he saw their shadowy figures entering the next block, swinging past the neat homes and graceful rows of young buttonwood trees, long legs flashing in the illumination from street lamps and windows. He looked down at his son. “They’re the ones who made you steal the twelve dollars, right?”

Jimmy sighed and said, “That’s right.”

“You said they were your size, your age.” Farrell squeezed his shoulder. “How come, Jimmy?”

“They told me to. I was afraid. They said if anybody asked about them to say they were just kids. I don’t know — I mean, I know why I lied to you. I was afraid, that’s all.”

“I understand, Jimmy. Don’t worry about that.”

“Are you going to do anything to them, Daddy?”

Farrell said, “Don’t worry about that either. I’ll take care of it.”