Songs in Ordinary Time (35 page)

They brought him magazines from the staff lounge and extra cigarettes.

168 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

The maids in their navy-blue uniforms and white ruffled aprons took twice as long to clean his room. One of them, an olive-skinned, stout woman from town, made him guanti and smuggled it into his room. “Men who drink need a lot of sugar,” she told him as she watched him eat. The powdered sugar fell like fine snow onto the green bedspread. She brushed it off.

“I’m through with drinking,” he said hoarsely.

“You should be,” she said, handing him a napkin. “A man with a silver tongue like you should be out making a million dollars for himself, like my son.”

Though Litchfield wouldn’t tell Sam exactly when he’d be leaving, he had begun to make plans. When he got home he was going to get a job, not just any job this time, but one he could look forward to when he got up in the morning, one he could be proud of. He would move out of Helen’s and get his own place.

Yesterday, he had written Helen a letter asking her to send the want ads from the
Atkinson Crier
. He would have to get new clothes. He had made up a list of what he’d need for work: two pairs of shoes, one black, one brown. Three white shirts, three ties (blue, red, and brown), two suits (gray and brown), seven pairs of socks, seven sets of underwear. Handkerchiefs.

He had started a grocery list, but only got as far as coffee and sugar. He didn’t know if his room would have a refrigerator for the cream, or even a stove, for that matter. And where would this room be? Who would rent him a room if he didn’t have a job? And who the hell was going to hire him?

And if no one would hire him, how the hell was he going to pay for the new clothes? And if he didn’t have at least one good suit and a pair of half-decent shoes, he couldn’t even hold his head up during an interview. He would write Helen another letter asking for a loan to get him started.

He stood in front of the mirror combing his hair. He changed his part from right to left, then back again. First day home he would get a haircut and a shave. He would ask the barber which side looked best parted. He leaned close to the mirror. He would have those nostril hairs clipped. He felt better already. He started another list, this one, personal-care items: shaving cream, styptic pencil, razors.
Bay rum
, he wrote, then scratched it out with a chuckle.

M
arie whipped the potatoes, then set the table quickly around Omar, who ran his finger down the want ads. “Short-order cook,” he murmured. “Stock boy…telephone repairs. Oh my Lord, my dear, dearest Lord,”

and as he sighed, his whole body seemed to deflate.

Poor Omar, how much more rejection could he take? She bit her lip.

Never had she seen anyone work so long and hard with so little to show for it. It didn’t make sense. In the last few weeks he had been working sixteen-and twenty-hour days. He was always in a hurry. The only time she saw him lately was when he drove her to work in the morning and then picked her up when the store closed. He would come into the house just long enough to wolf down dinner before rushing out again on the trail of SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 169

new leads. He had lined up dozens of people interested in becoming Presto Soap dealers, but he had yet to sell a single franchise.

He turned the page now and yawned. Poor thing, he could barely keep his eyes open half the time, and now he had this skin condition. She had first noticed the deep purple blotches on his neck Thursday morning on the way to work. Just the heat, he had said, trying to make light of them.

“No,” she had said, leaning closer and pulling back his collar. “They almost look like bruises.”

“Stress,” he had said, removing her hand. “That’s all, just a physiological manifestation of my frustration. A sign.” He had smiled sadly. “Marie, I’m afraid I’ve become just one more problem in your life.”

“No! No, you’re not! Of course you’re not,” she had insisted.

“Well, let’s just say I don’t make things any easier for you, especially with the children, with Norm. I know how bitter he is about me having the car all the time.”

No, the only real problem was Norm’s surliness. The minute Omar walked into a room, Norm would leave.

Omar yawned again now, as he began to tell her about the grueling two-day sales meeting in Bennington that had ended with the induction of new distributors. He had been there as an observer. The company was extremely careful not to put pressure on new people. “The top brass, they were all there,” he was saying. “Distributors from all over the country in their pin-striped suits and solid-gold cuff links.”

She slid into the opposite chair, a dazed smile forming. She was dying to hear if he’d gotten to talk with Roy Gold, the president.

“There was this one gentleman from Louisville, Kentucky, whom I met when I went into the…the rest room.” He cleared his throat and she was sure he was blushing.

“And I could not believe my eyes,” he continued. “Because there he was, this particular gentleman from Louisville, with his foot up on the washbasin, buffing his wingtips with dollar bills. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ I said, ‘but I think those are dollar bills with which you are buffing your shoes.’ And he says in this honey-thick drawl, which if you think mine is bad you should hear him, he says, ‘They sure are, Mr. Duvall. A dollar bill’ll put a shine on just about anything.’ And then he looked at me, one of those kind of sidelong glances when you can just feel all your bones and the fillings in your teeth being enumerated, and he says, ‘Or maybe you didn’t know that, Mr.

Duvall.’ And then, just like that, he crumpled those dollar bills up and tossed them in the wastebasket like they were nothing, nothing at all to him, a man of his position. Like it was all so…so beneath him, and the door wasn’t even closed behind him but what I was pawing through that wastebasket, when all of a sudden it hits me, and I’m thinking, I am not like him. In fact I am not like any of them in there with all their, pardon my French, Marie, but their b.s. No sir.” He shook his head. “Am not and never will be.”

There was a jolt of pain in her temples. Sam used to talk like this. He wouldn’t be a week on a new job before he’d be declaring himself too intel-170 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

ligent, too sensitive, the job too menial. Were all men like this? Was it just women who knew that a job was a job; you did what you had to do, whatever it took, and you were just damn grateful you had one. “What about Roy Gold? Did you meet him?” Her hands were shaking.

“I did, and he said he’d like to get together with me.” Omar checked his watch.

“Today?”

“No, no.” He laughed. “He said to call him soon as I sell my first franchise.” He glanced up at the clock, then, frowning, held the watch to his ear.

“Do you have an appointment or something?” she asked.

“Nothing important,” he said with a wave. “Just a few more leads, that’s all. Or should I say dead ends.” He sighed.

“You’ll sell a franchise. I know you will,” she said, hearing that old desperation in her voice.
Just try. Keep at it. Don’t give up. Please. For me. For us
.

“What about that Bernadette Mansaw? Didn’t you say she’s buying in?”

“Well,” Omar said, “we’re getting there, getting close, but the problem’s precedence, which I totally understand, precedence being such a powerful motivating factor in today’s business world.”

“What do you mean, precedence?” She hated asking; Omar seemed to think she had such a head for business.

“For instance, how do I convince Miss Mansaw that she’s joining a flourishing empire when I have no other investors to show her?” He smiled.

“You see, not many people can judge character as well as you, Marie. Most of the ones I run into need facts and figures. I’m trying to help them envision a future, and all they want to see is a warehouse filled with product. They lack magnitude and imagination! It’s hard with such little people. You want so much to give them that boost, that head start, but they fight you and doubt you and fight you and doubt you. They all want precedence, which I can neither deliver nor avoid.” He closed his eyes with a bitter snort. “And thus the dog is doomed to chase his tail around and around and around.”

“But what if you just said you had an investor?” Marie said. “You know, just use my name.”

Omar laid down the newspaper and gazed at her. “What a good scout you are!” He shook his head in gratitude. “I appreciate your offer. But without a cash investment Roy Gold would never issue you franchise documentation. That man is scrupulous.” He grimaced. “Even the slightest hint of impropriety and I’d be through.”

“I didn’t mean anything dishonest!” she said quickly.

“Oh I know that,” Omar answered as quickly.

“I just want to help, that’s all,” she tried to explain, her face red. He had misunderstood.

“Help!” he cried, pointing at the stove. “This bounty exceeds help. It’s sustenance! It’s life-giving!”

She could hear Norm and Alice arguing. Norm needed to use the bathroom. Somewhere in the neighborhood a lawn was being mowed. She SONGS IN ORDINARY TIME / 171

pressed against the counter edge as the distant motor hummed closer. Omar started to get up.

“Wait! You know I’d buy one if I could. If I had the money.”

“Yes, I know that,” he said sadly.

“Mom!” Norm called. “Tell her to get out!”

She raced around the corner and banged on the bathroom door.

“I’m late for work!” Alice called back.

“You’ve been in there for a half hour!” Norm called over Marie’s shoulder.

“You let your brother in there right now!”

“God, I hate it here,” Alice said on the other side of the door.

“You hate it here?” she panted, her face at the door.

“Mom,” Norm said, touching her arm, cringing as she spun around.

“Listen to her! You hate this house? Nothing’s ever good enough, is it? I wish I had a color TV like the Stoners have”—she mimicked Alice with a sickening petulance—“I wish I had nice clothes like Mary Agnes. I wish we had a shower like everybody else does. I wish, I wish, I wish, well damn it, don’t you think I wish, too?” She hit the door. “Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you?”

“If wishes were riches, then beggars would be kings,” Omar whispered as he passed through the living room. The front door closed, and she buried her face in her hands. She had lost control. She had driven him away.

Alice had left for work. Norm and Benjy were on the couch watching television. With Omar gone, the house seemed to coil up in a paroxysm of eerie energy. The spell had been broken, and now Marie knew there would never be happiness. The television tubes sputtered and fizzed. Ghostly double images jerked across the screen. There were ants climbing up the baseboard.

“Now he knows,” she muttered as she wielded the bug spray, spraying crumb-filled corners and the dark musty recesses behind the stove and refrigerator. “Knows the trash we are.” She coughed with the oily fumes that would probably poison them all—if they were lucky. “Worthless, hopeless trash.” She laughed hoarsely. “Let him run. They all run, every one of them, useless, weak cowards, lazy no-good bastards.”

And then he was back, his arms cradling a damp toweled bundle as he asked for Alice. Norm told him she was gone.

“This is my belated graduation present for her,” he said as he snaked a tangle of rubber hosing and grimy couplings from the towel and now a soap-filmed chrome disk.

“Wow,” Norm said, rolling his eyes. “She’s really gonna be happy.”

Omar buffed the disk on his lapel while he explained that one of the roomers at the boardinghouse was a plumbing wholesaler. He had sold Omar his top model.

“How much?” Marie asked guiltily. Just a few days ago she had lent him another ten dollars for rent.

172 / MARY MCGARRY MORRIS

“Just my word,” he said as he examined the polished disk under the lamp.

“My only currency in trade for this brand-new portable shower.”

“That’s brand new?” Norm scoffed.

“Brand new!” Omar said with a sweet smile.

“Funny,” Norm said, pointing, “but there’s water leaking out the hose on your leg.”

“Not so funny,” Omar said, passing the towel over his stained pant leg.

“Naturally I hooked it up at the boardinghouse first to check it for leaks.”

“Naturally,” Norm said, and it was all she could do to keep from slapping that fresh mouth of his.

Omar looked at him. “Though it may surprise you, Normy-boy, I am not a fool. But I certainly do seem to suffer more than my share of them,” he sighed as he stepped into the bathroom.

“Omar!” she said from the doorway. “He didn’t mean it that way!” She glared back at Norm.

“Don’t you worry, dear lady,” Omar grunted through the rattle of pipes and running water. “Norman and I have a fine understanding of one another.

In fact, I’d say we’re probably peas from the same pod, wouldn’t you say, Normy-boy?” he called out.

“Yessuh! Yessuh! Ah’d say so, suh!” Norm called back. Benjy laughed.

Smiling, she watched Omar press the suction-cupped shower-head to the wall high over the tub.

He glanced back at her. “Life can be good, Marie. Take my word for it. It can!”

T
he sun was hot, the sky pure blue, and Sam had never felt better. This morning there had been a note in his room from Dr. Litchfield.
Good
news, Sam
! it said.
Tell you at our session
. His thirty days were almost up, and so it had to be that Litchfield was going to tell him when he could leave.

With his newspaper under his arm he strolled through the gardens. His hair was slicked back from the jaunty wave he had set carefully over his brow, and he wore the dark-blue pants one of the orderlies had pressed for him and the white nylon summer shirt he’d snagged from the laundry cart.

Yes sir, he thought, if you had to dry out, you could do a hell of a lot worse than this place. A little chill went through him, but he shrugged it off. It was that old collision of hope and fear that always came as he neared the end of his thirty days. But this time it had to work. It had to. He was getting too old for this shit.