Jack (Gilead #4)(44)

A night or two later he pulled a flyleaf out of Paterson and wrote a note: Mrs. B.—I have been away from work because I have not been well. Sincere regrets, J. A. Boughton (Slick). He put it into the little basket hanging by the door, which was there to collect the bills and flyers that might otherwise have entered the establishment bringing threats and sad information. There was no chance she would find his note, but he would be able to find it if he needed proof he had been somewhat conscientious. But then, when he thought he might be presentable enough to show up for work and went to the shop, he saw the CLOSED sign, and a notice on the door, a piece of typewriter paper that said, matter-of-factly, Going out of business, prices slashed, everything must go, all sales final, our loss is your gain.

And still that pair of faded men’s moccasins posed in the window. Why did it afflict him in some way that this starveling enterprise had suffered its final throes without his being there for the death watch? Well, a fragile strand of connection to ordinary life gone. What to do with the rest of the day. Beer, he thought. He could walk far enough to be out of the sphere of his acquaintance, beyond more than usual skepticism, and probably break a twenty. Worth a try. St. Louis is a German town, which made things a little unpredictable where the great issues were concerned. He would bear that in mind. But there was also beer with so much food value as to excuse his having it for breakfast. Then he could forget about lunch. And when it was evening, he would walk over to that place by the river, a sort of open-air plaza where there was a swing band and people danced. By then he would be too mellow to care that they were all young and that so many of them were soldiers or sailors, brought there to be scattered over the continent, back to the land of mom and dad. He was in general quiet when he drank. Anyway, he looked a little drunk when he was sober, a little sober when he was drunk, so his odds were always about even. He’d stand to the side and listen to the music, and no one would really mind, though everything about him said 4-F.

He found schwarzbier and bockbier in a shop that also sold very ripe cheese, white sausages, and giant pretzels. He felt a twinge of something like appetite. He left with a large, odoriferous bag in his arms and nearly sixteen dollars in his pocket. The man at the counter said, “You was never one of these soldiers,” gesturing toward the street. “I can see that. They’re rough sometimes. I was not a soldier. I get along all right most of the time.” And he made change like a gesture of subversive bonhomie and added an apple to the bag.

Jack walked down to the river and sat there in the sun with the bag sitting on the bench beside him, companionably. He smelled like cigarettes and cheap aftershave, and the bag smelled like cheese and pretzels, the two of them just being what they were, the cheese no doubt sweating a little in the sunlight, just as he was. Prolong the moment, he thought, and then he knocked the cap off a bottle against the edge of the bench. “Swig” is an odd word. Perfect, though. He knew he would go from being a little content to pretty content to despondent, each phase in his descent rewarding in its own way. No sober man could admit to mourning the loss of the stupidest job imaginable. He would watch the river and consider the transiency of things for an hour or so, and then who knows. Whatever the virtues of food, it did blunt the effects of alcohol. If he ate the pretzel, he might never reach the state where he could put into words, and weep inwardly as he did it, that he would miss talking box scores with Mrs. Beverly. As a sober man he might maintain some sort of perspective, but once he was drunk, what mattered mattered. A trifling pleasure lost. He had nowhere to be, and he was really so sorry.

That done, he was any bum dozing on a bench, jobless and 4-F, steeped in beer and sunshine. Then the air cooled with evening and the memory stirred in him that he had meant to go watch the dancing and hear the music. First home, to shave and pull himself together. No. He lifted his hat to run his fingers through his hair and straightened his tie and walked toward the sound of a piano.

It was a mixed crowd. More precisely, there were black soldiers on one side of the plaza, white on the other; black girls on one side, white on the other. All the shy business of pairing off for a dance or two, the awkwardness of teasing and roughhousing among the soldiers, like boys who have only a minute or two away from authority and order.

And there was Della, with two black men, one tall, the other taller, both in civilian clothes but with that martial bearing people talk about. Della was laughing, teasing and joking with a few black soldiers who stepped out of the crowd and gathered around them, shaking hands and clapping shoulders. He’d never seen this Della, had never imagined there could be such a Della. Well, of course. She was young and pretty, and he could never be standing with her like that in a public place, in a crowd, under a streetlamp. There was nothing at stake for him, no thread of connection to break, only the habit to rid himself of, of thinking about her, which he really had no right to do. He should have expected something like this. He had no reason to feel stunned by it, to be frozen in place by it, when he wanted so badly to leave.

Then she turned for some reason and looked right at him, and he just stood there, absorbing the fact. She spoke to the taller of the two men, who also looked at him. Jack touched the brim of his hat and smiled, just a glimpse of a rim of teeth and a look that meant, I have a certain acquaintance with your girlfriend. I have admired the lobe of her ear and have thought of tracing the curve of her cheek with my fingertip. Any number of times. It was so ridiculous he almost made himself laugh, even though he knew he was risking one of those dustups that never went well for him.