The Neon Jungle

Chapter Eighteen

Vern Lockter drove the Thursday-morning delivery route with ragged impatience. He raced the lights, cut corners, squealed his wheels in the driveways. He thumped the orders on the kitchen tables, trotted back to the truck. He knew that his haste was not making the time go faster, yet he felt as though he had to hurry. It seemed the only way to ease the tension within him. He kept remembering how it had been, the sense of strength and power he had felt when he had walked through the sleeping house.

He remembered how he had stood beside the bed, barely hearing her whisper, “Oh no, oh no, ohno ohno ohno ohno...” slurring the words into meaningless incantation. An incantation that had stopped as he had slid in beside her.

And he remembered the half-heard dismal sound of her crying as he had left her.

Doris sat in the dim morning cave of the living room. The life within her kicked lustily and she put the needle into the pincushion and held the palm of her hand against herself and felt the soft thumping against her hand. You could hate it, and hate the thought of the clumsiness and hate the aching back, and remember the awkward and customary discomfort of the moment of conception and hate that too. But then, unaware, would come these moments of a strange warm excitement. Moments, almost, of pride. My son, my daughter, my child.

The joyous moment faded and she snatched up the needle again. What will you have, my child? A thoughtless, meek, stupid, ambitionless father. A stinking inheritance of a weary little market. Oh, God, I wanted so much and now I’m trapped, forever and ever and ever. How did it happen?

Jimmy Dover studied the vegetable rack for a moment. Funny how quick you could start liking something. Pale crisp green of lettuce, dark feathery green of the carrot tops. Royal gleaming eggplant purple. Tomato red.

He liked going out in the truck with the old man in the predawn, when the lights were bright on the stuff that had come in from the farms. They kidded around out there, and they all knew the old man. He kidded too, but in a kind of heavy way, as if he didn’t feel like it. He was shrewd, all right, about knowing what to buy, knowing what was best. You could watch him carefully and pick up a lot of tips. And he’d always answer questions. Not like some guys who want to make a dark secret out of anything they know. It was all pretty tricky. There were fifty things to learn about tomatoes alone, and he’d always thought tomatoes were tomatoes, and so what?

There sure was a lot of work to the grocery business, but at the same time there was a lot of fun to it, too. You could see the old man liked it, just from the way he handled stuff. On this night-school pitch it might be a good idea to take courses that would help you in the grocery business. Purchasing methods and calories and bookkeeping and stuff like that. Maybe advertising, too. And that diet stuff. They all seem kind of gloomy around here, though. That Lockter won’t give you the time of day. Only time he says anything is when he wants something done right now. Same with that Walter. Rick is a sort of a dumb guy. Bonny is nice, though. And Jana is sort of nice. When the kid gets back, that Teena, maybe she’ll cheer them up. They’re probably all worried about her. She could be cute once she gets fixed up. It looks like I’m getting through this week O.K. But I wish these people could be more friendly, sort of.

Rick, at the chopping block, with his back to the store, made a quick slit in a T-bone steak that he suspected was going to be tough, fingered the small glossy cylinder out of the pocket of his apron, and thumbed it into the slit. That was the next to the last one of the week. It had become a meaningless game. You do anything enough times and it seems like you stop thinking about it. He wrapped the steak, tied it, snapped off the string, weighed it, and crayoned the price on the outside. He carried it out into the storeroom and gave it to Walter. He walked solidly back and found two customers waiting. He gave them his big smile and said, “Got some nice pork chops today, ladies.”

Teena, in pajamas, canvas slippers, and gray bathrobe, walked down the gravel path slowly with the thin nurse. The sun felt hot. This was the first walk. It felt like coming out of the movies in the middle of the afternoon. Like daylight was surprising. Her legs felt trembly, and the sun hurt her eyes.

“Too fast, honey?” the nurse asked.

“No. This is O.K.”

“We can go all the way down to those benches. Then we’ll sit a little while and go back.”

“O.K.”

“Then after we go back you’ll finish all your lunch tray today.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“We got to put some meat on you, honey. You look like a picked chicken.”

“I don’t care how I look.”

“Then after lunch I’ll fix you up nice in the solarium where you’ll have people to talk to.”

“I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Here we are, honey. We can sit in the sun for a little while. Doesn’t it feel good, though?”

Gus stood heavily and watched the colorless little man tenderly open his worn case of gleaming brass weights. There were four scales to check in the store. The same little man came in and checked them each time, always with an air of somber dedication. Gus, while watching him, was thinking of Jana, and of her oddness on this morning when he had arisen at four to go with the new boy to the farmers’ market. Usually her sleep when he left was that of any healthy young animal. On this morning she had clung to him and asked him not to go. For a time he had tried to be patient with her nonsense, but then in irritation he had pulled his arm from her grasp. Women had strange moods. Jana had always seemed so quiet and patient. And her sweetness of body had brought back, for a time, the energies of younger years. But now there was too much worry. Henry. Teena. Too many cold things to think about.

The Judge sat like a cross child in his hot bath, soaping his body. It had been an unpleasant failure. Guillermo had just used his imagination this time. True, she had been young enough, but filled with a callous, uncooperative indifference. Damn it, the girl had acted bored. That did not flatter a man. And then there was the business of the envelope. A girl of the proper instincts would have accepted it discreetly and tucked it away. But this young person had ripped it open, fanned the three bills, shrugged, and put the bills in her purse. She had made him feel gross and old and ridiculous.

All in all, this was not one of the better weeks. He had the feeling that he had become too fanciful in his handling of the Lockter situation. Perhaps Lockter’s talent for melodrama was contagious. Ritchie, whose instincts were usually sound, had listened to the solution and dared to sneer at it. “O.K., Judge, so you’re cute. So you maybe got him sewed up right. Me, I would have told him to get in the truck and bring the butcher with him, and someplace along the line I would have a good trustworthy boy in one of Herman’s old semi jobs give them the head-on treatment. Like in Fall River last year. Suppose he just turns that butcher into hospital meat?”

“You worry too much, Ritchie.”

“You’re getting too cute, Judge.”

Jana, down on one thick knee putting canned soup on the low rack, grease-penciling the price on the top of each can, glanced guiltily over toward Bonny and saw that some instinct had informed her that Bonny was staring at her. She saw the look in Bonny’s eyes and turned hastily back to the task at hand. Bonny knew, somehow. Bonny knew that in spite of her promise, it had happened again. God, she couldn’t help it. He was like a knife in her heart. Keen, cold, cruel.

I won’t be able to stand it if he goes away. Even if it is a bad thing. Even if it is terrible, the way he does it, like hating, I don’t want him to go away.

What had happened to everything?

What is happening to the world?

The driveway that led to the back of the store was on the far side of the big house. Paul parked by the driveway and walked to where he could see the back of the market. The truck was not there. Lockter would be back soon, probably. He went back to his car and sat behind the wheel to wait. He knew he should be thinking of how he would handle this talk with Lockter, and yet he could not turn his thoughts away from Bonny. She had been so very alive in his arms. And no one could have so perfectly imitated that tremulousness, that nervous laugh. He knew the kiss had moved her. Yet he had the bitter awareness that the next time it would be the same — he would be waiting for some sign of deceit, of pretended passion.

During the wakeful hours of the night he had decided that he wanted to marry her. And he had prayed for the strength to overcome the jealousy that was like rusty iron being pulled through his body. Yet he knew that their salvation in any marriage would be possible only if their physical mating was a strong, good, tender thing. Without that, neither of them would have the strength to stand up under the weight of her past. And so he had decided it necessary for them to be together soon, to find this answer, to go on if the answer could be good, and turn their backs on each other if the answer was wrong.

When the panel delivery truck turned into the drive he got out quickly and waved Vern Lockter to a stop.

“Hi there, Mr. Darmond! What’s on your mind?”

“I want to talk to you, Vern.”

“O.K. I’ll park this wagon and be right back.”

Vern came walking down the drive and got in beside Paul and accepted a cigarette.

“Vern, I know you’re your own boy now. You’re not on parole. You don’t even have to listen to any advice I want to give you. You can get out and walk away and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Darmond.”

Paul sat so that he faced Vern. “What are you trying to do to Jana, Vern?”

Vern had been lifting his hand to take the cigarette from his lips. The hand stopped and was motionless for one long second. The lean handsome face became like a mask. “Just what is that supposed to mean? I don’t get it.”

“Don’t try to kid me, Vern. Gus took you in. He’s treated you right. It’s a hell of a repayment for you to sleep with his wife.”

Vern looked straight ahead for a long time. Then he looked at his cigarette. He said softly, “I guess maybe you’re right, Mr. Darmond. I guess maybe it is a hell of a thing. What beats me is how you found out so fast.”

“We won’t talk about how I found out, boy.”

“Honest, I tried to do the right thing, Mr. Darmond. But she sort of wore me down.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s been going on for a long time. I don’t mean I’ve been sleeping with her a long time. I mean she’s been after me. When I work in the store she manages to work close to me. You know. Oh, I could tell what she wanted, all right, but I didn’t want to do anything like that to Gus. I mean he’s been swell to me. But you know how it is. He’s pretty old, and Jana is full of Wheaties. I... sort of forgot myself finally. You know, if I stay around here, Mr. Darmond, I can’t promise I’ll stay away from her. I guess I’m... well, weak or something. Anyway, I’m not the only one getting it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Would you be willing to leave, Vern?”

“The way I figure it, I’ve been here long enough. I ought to start thinking of bettering myself. Being more than a delivery boy. And I’m afraid there might be real trouble if Jana and I got caught. Sure, Mr. Darmond, I’m willing to leave.”

“Do you want help locating another job?”

“No. I think I’ll go somewhere else. Out west, maybe.”

“When?”

Vern flicked the cigarette out the window. “I guess I could take off Sunday.”

“Will that give Gus a chance to find another driver?”

“That new kid will work out O.K. Deliveries will be fouled up for a few days, but he’ll catch on fast.”

“Don’t you think you ought to tell Gus you’re planning to leave?”

“I’d rather not. Jana might make a stink about it. You know. Let something slip, or want to come with me or something.”

“I think you’re making good sense, Vern.”

“Thanks, Mr. Darmond. I’m glad you talked to me like this. I can see now how I was headed for trouble. But you know how it is with a babe. You sort of forget yourself. It’s time I took off.”

“I think so too.”

“Well, thanks for everything, Mr. Darmond. You’ve been swell to me. Really swell. I’ll never forget you.”

Paul returned the strong honest handclasp and looked into the too direct eyes. He sat and watched Lockter walk back up the drive, turn and wave and grin just before he went around the corner of the house. He sat for several minutes, vaguely unsatisfied with the talk. It had come out better than he had dared hope. It was like swinging hard at something and missing. He shrugged off his feeling of irritation and foreboding.

Bonny was standing in the shed passageway by the pile of crates of empty soft-drink bottles. Walter gave her an odd glance and as he started to go by her she said, “I want to talk to you.”

“I got things to do.”

“I want to talk to you right now, Walter.”

“That sounds like you were trying to give orders around here. Let me tell you that when I’m ready for you to give me—”

“Don’t bluster at me. I know you’re taking money. And you know I know it. Stealing from your own father.”

His eyes slid uneasily away from hers. “You crazy or something?” he asked sullenly.

“You can’t bluff your way out of this, Walter.”

“O.K. It’s my money just as much as it is his. I’ll take it if I feel like it.”

“You aren’t taking it. You’re sneaking it out of the drawer. Altering receipts to make the cash-up balance. And I know why you’re taking it.”

He gave her a look of utter shock and surprise. “What!”

“You’re taking it and hiding it away and when you have enough you’re going to run like a miserable rabbit. All the states cooperate in returning husbands on the run. You’ll be brought back. You know that, don’t you?”

“I’ll never come back here.”

“How brave! How dramatic!”

“I can’t take this much longer. I tell you I’ve taken it just as long as I can.”

“If I were married to a mouse like you, Walter, I’d stick just as many pins in you as Doris does.”

He frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“I’d want to be married to a man. I’d want my man to be boss. I’d keep prodding at him to see just how much he’d take before turning on me and putting me in my place.”

“Doris isn’t like that.”

“How do you know? Of course, you can’t find out until after the baby comes. You can’t start... disciplining her until after that.”

“My God, you mean hit her? If I ever hit Doris she’d kill me.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“Aren’t you bigger than she is?”

She watched him, watched the thought-masked face, the slow and curious straightening of the shoulders. She said quickly, “If I were a man I’d certainly at least try that before running like—”

“Like a rabbit,” he said.

“Don’t take any more money, Walter. I don’t want it to be blamed on me. And if it were, I don’t think you’re man enough to clear me.”

“I might take some more and I might not.”

“Doris is sweet. You’ve turned her into a shrew by being so gutless.”

“She was born a shrew.”

“Was she? Then why did you marry her? Wasn’t she different before she married you?”

“She fooled me.”

“Or you fooled her, Walter. Lots of women who think they’re marrying men are disappointed. Then they keep needling those men in the silly hope that somehow they’ll begin to show some spirit.”

“I got to think about this. I don’t know. I think maybe you’re wrong, Bonny. But honest, I never thought of anybody blaming you.”

It was the psychological moment, so she turned and walked away from him, walked out into the store leaving him standing there with an expression in which trouble and vague hope were mixed. Her heart gave a high, hard, startling bound as she saw Paul standing tall near the cash register, chatting with Jimmy. He saw her and smiled toward her. She walked to him with a strange shy feeling.

“Lunch at the same place?” he asked.

She nodded.