The Night Remembers

5

Dinner that evening was a can of Campbell’s chicken noodle, three Saltines, and a glass of Hamms. In the living room I watched “The Andy Griffith Show” first on Channel 9 and then a second episode on Channel 3 from Chicago. It was one of Sharon’s favorite shows and now it’s mine. I’d like to get up some morning and walk down a sunny street and stop in at the barber shop and have Floyd cut my hair while Barney regaled me with tales of how he conquered reluctant women and bold criminals. Then maybe Andy, in that calm way of his, could tell me why I spent so much time feeling anxious and depressed. If Andy didn’t know, who the hell would?

The phone rang three or four times, but it was never Faith. Twice it was people trying to sell me things and once or twice it was tenants with questions. But no Faith.

At nine on the American Movie Classics station a Gregory Peck movie called The Gunfighter came on. I was glad I was alone. This particular movie has always had the embarrassing ability to make me cry. I remember the first time I saw it back in the fifties when my two boys were young. There I sat in the Palace Theater with the lights coming up and tears in my eyes. The boys both looked at me and then at each other, and for the next two days it was all they talked about. How Dad was sort of sniffling at the end of the movie. Gregory Peck gets killed at the end by the western equivalent of a snotty young bastard who wears saddle shoes.

At ten the phone rang. There was something urgent and important in the way it rang and I got it right away, assuming it was going to be Faith and I was going to go over there and we were finally going to have our talk about what she’d learned at the doctor’s.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Walsh?”

“Yes.”

“This is Mrs. Pennyfeather.”

“Oh. Hello.”

“I’m sorry to be calling so late.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m afraid something’s come up.”

“I see.”

“I wondered, in fact, if you could come out here.”

“Out to your house?”

“Yes.”

I hesitated. “Mrs. Pennyfeather, I just don’t think it would be a good idea.”

She hesitated. “Circumstances have changed, Mr. Walsh. I really don’t know whom else to turn to.”

“Did something happen?”

“Nothing I’d care to go into on the phone. Nothing I can go into on the phone.”

“Where do you live, Mrs. Pennyfeather?”

“Out near Bever Park. Off Grande.” She gave me the address. “You’re coming, then?”

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

“This afternoon, when I met you again after all these years, I sensed you were a decent man.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I left so abruptly.”

“That’s all right.”

“It’s just been such a trying time for me.”

“I’m sure it has, Mrs. Pennyfeather.”

“I’m really rather desperate, Mr. Walsh.”

I sighed. “I suppose I could come out there for a little while.”

It was an odd time for it but she started crying then. Very softly. “I’m sorry, Mr. Walsh, I just feel so alone.”

“That’s all right, Mrs. Pennyfeather.”

“You know how to get here, then?”

“Yes. I’ll need half an hour.”

“Fine. I’ll see you then. And thank you. Thank you so much.”

In the bathroom I brushed my teeth and shaved and took quick stock of my six-one, one-ninety body. All my life my baby face had been something to joke about and something that had kept me from feeling as rough and tough as I’d wanted to. Rough and tough guys just didn’t have baby faces. Now, at my age, the face was something to be thankful for. When I kept my weight down, as now, I looked ten years younger than I should have. In the bedroom I put on a pair of red argyles, a white shirt, black slacks, cordovan penny loafers, and a gray wool sport coat. I went back into the bathroom and ran a comb through my soft white hair. I kept it short, almost in a crew cut, which seemed to make it for some reason seem less old-mannish. The final touch was the Old Spice, which I slapped on with a certain ferocity. I hadn’t forgotten that Mrs. Pennyfeather was a damn good-looking woman.

In the living room, just under the framed portrait of JFK that Sharon had bought on a trip to New York the year she’d died of a heart attack, I lifted the receiver and dialed Faith’s number. Finally, I had an excuse to call her. I would be going out and just wanted to check in with her.

The phone rang ten times before she picked it up.

“I know it’s you, Walsh.”

She hadn’t said hello or anything.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” I said.

“It’s just easier right now if I’m alone.”

“All right.”

“I know I’m overreacting.”

“You have to handle it the way you handle it, Faith. There’s not any right or wrong way.”

“Thanks for saying that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Maybe we could have breakfast tomorrow morning at Country Kitchen.”

“I’d like that.”

She paused. “I called my mother tonight.”

“How’d it go?”

“She was drunk.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“When I told her she started crying and carrying on. Just what I was afraid she’d do.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have called her.”

“She’s my mother.”

“She’s also the woman who ran off and left you before you were fifteen years old.”

“She’s always been an alcoholic. She couldn’t help it.”

“I guess.”

“You’ve never liked her, have you?”

“Not much.”

“She can be very sweet when she’s sober.”

I had long ago tired of the subject of her mother. “I have to go out. That’s why I was calling.”

“Out?”

“A case. Sort of, anyway.”

“At this hour?”

“I know.”

“When will you be back?”

“Few hours, probably.”

“God, I didn’t realize how secure I felt.”

“About what?”

“About knowing you were just sitting there by the phone. Waiting for me to call. It was really something I depended on.”

“It’s not like I’m going to Des Moines.”

“Still.”

I laughed. “Maybe I could get a walkie-talkie.”

She laughed, too. “You should’ve seen Hoyt tonight. He let Sam get up in his lap and they sat there for a long time and watched the Road Runner.” Sam was their tabby cat.

“I should be back here around midnight or so.”

“I’m sorry. I just have to work through this stuff.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I’ll call you around midnight.”

“I’d like that.”

“Take care of yourself, Walsh.”

“Right. See you.”