The Postman Always Rings Twice (4 page)

      I caught a ride to San Bernardino. It's a railroad town, and I was going to hop a freight east. But I didn't do it. I ran into a guy in a poolroom, and began playing him one ball in the side. He was the greatest job in the way of a sucker that God ever turned out, because he had a friend that could really play. The only trouble with him was, he couldn't play good enough. I hung around with the pair of them a couple of weeks, and took $250 off them, all they had, and then I had to beat it out of town quick.

      I caught a truck for Mexicali, and then I got to thinking about my $250, and how with that much money we could go to the beach and sell hot dogs or something until we got a stake to take a crack at something bigger. So I dropped off, and caught a ride back to Glendale. I began hanging around the market where they bought their stuff, hoping I would bump into her. I even called her up a couple of times, but the Greek answered and I had to make out it was a wrong number. In between walking around the market, I hung around a poolroom, about a block down the street, One day a guy was practicing shots alone on one of the tables. You could tell he was new at it from the way he held his cue. I began practicing shots on the next table. I figured if $250 was enough for a hot dog stand, $350 would leave us sitting pretty.

      "How you say to a little one ball in the side?"

      "I never played that game much."

      "Nothing to it. Just the one ball in the side pocket."

      "Anyhow, you look too good for me."

      "Me? I'm just a punk."

      "Oh well. If it's just a friendly game."

      We started to play, and I let him take three or four, just to feel good. I kept shaking my head, like I couldn't understand it.

      "Too good for you, hey. Well, that's a joke. But I swear, I'm really better than this. I can't seem to get going. How you say we put $1 on it, just to make it lively?"

      "Oh well. I can't lose much at a dollar."

      We made it $1 a game, and I let him take four or five, maybe more. I shot like I was pretty nervous, and in between shots I would wipe off the palm of my hand with a handkerchief, like I must be sweating.

      "Well, it looks like I'm not doing so good. How about making it $5, so I can get my money back, and then we'll go have a drink?"

      "Oh well. It's just a friendly game, and I don't want your money. Sure. We'll make it $5, and then we'll quit."

      I let him take four or five more, and from the way I was acting, you would have thought I had heart failure and a couple more things besides. I was plenty blue around the gills.

      "Look. I got sense enough to know when I'm out of my class all right, but let's make it $25, so I can break even, and then we'll go have that drink."

      "That's pretty high for me."

      "What the hell? You're playing on my money, aren't you?"

      "Oh well. All right. Make it $25."

      Then was when I really started to shoot. I made shots that Hoppe couldn't make. I banked them in from three cushions, I made billiard shots, I had my english working so the ball just floated around the table, I even called a jump shot and made it. He never made a shot that Blind Tom the Sightless Piano Player couldn't have made. He miscued, he got himself all tangled up on position, he scratched, he put the one ball in the wrong pocket, he never even called a bank shot. And when I walked out of there, he had my $250 and a $3 watch that I had bought to keep track of when Cora might be driving in to the market. Oh, I was good all right. The only trouble was I wasn't quite good enough.

      "Hey, Frank!"

      It was the Greek, running across the street at me before I had really got out the door.

      "Well Frank, you old son a gun, where you been, put her there, why you run away from me just a time I hurt my head I need you most?"

      We shook hands. He still had a bandage around his head and a funny look in his eyes, but he was all dressed up in a new suit, and had a black hat cocked over on the side of his head, and a purple necktie, and brown shoes, and his gold watch chain looped across his vest, and a big cigar in his hand.

      "Well, Nick! How you feeling, boy?"

      "Me, I feel fine, couldn't feel better if was right out a the can, but why you run out on me? I sore as hell at you, you old son a gun."

      "Well, you know me, Nick. I stay put a while, and then I got to ramble."

      "You pick one hell of a time to ramble. What you do, hey? Come on, you don't do nothing, you old son a gun, I know you, come on over while I buy'm steaks I tell you all about it."

      "You alone?"

      "Don't talk so dumb, who the hell you think keep a place open now you run out on me, hey? Sure I'm alone. Me a Cora never get to go out together now, one go, other have to stay."

      "Well then, let's walk over."

      It took him an hour to buy the steaks, he was so busy telling me how his skull was fractured, how the docs never saw a fracture like it, what a hell of a time he's had with his help, how he's had two guys since I left and he fired one the day after he hired him, and the other one skipped after three days and took the inside of the cash register with him, and how he'd give anything to have me back.

      "Frank, I tell you what. We go to Santa Barbara tomorrow, me a Cora. Hell boy, we got to step out a little, hey? We go see a fiesta there, and you come with us. You like that, Frank? You come with us, we talk about you come back a work for me. You like a fiesta a Santa Barbara?"

      "Well, I hear it's good."

      "Is a girls, is a music, is a dance in streets, is swell. Come on, Frank, what you say?"

      "Well, I don't know."

      "Cora be sore as hell at me if I see you and no bring you out. Maybe she treat you snotty, but she think you fine fellow, Frank. Come on, we all three go. We have a hell of a time."

      "O.K. If she's willing, it's a go."

      There were eight or ten people in the lunchroom when we got there, and she was back in the kitchen, washing dishes as fast as she could, to get enough plates to serve them.

      "Hey. Hey Cora, look. Look who I bring."

      "Well for heaven's sake. Where did he come from?"

      "I see'm today a Glendale. He go to Santa Barbara with us."

      "Hello, Cora. How you been?"

      "You're quite a stranger around here."

      She wiped her hands quick, and shook hands, but her hand was soapy. She went out front with an order, and me and the Greek sat down. He generally helped her with the orders, but he was all hot to show me something, and he let her do it all alone. It was a big scrapbook, and in the front of it he had pasted his naturalization certificate, and then his wedding certificate, and then his license to do business in Los Angeles County, and then a picture of himself in the Greek Army, and then a picture of him and Cora the day they got married, and then all the clippings about his accident. Those clippings in the regular papers, if you ask me, were more about the cat than they were about him, but anyway they had his name in them, and how he had been brought to the Glendale Hospital, and was expected to recover. The one in the Los Angeles Greek paper, though, was more about him than about the cat, and had a picture of him in it, in the dress suit he had when he was a waiter, and the story of his life. Then came the X-Rays. There were about a half dozen of them, because they took a new picture every day to see how he was getting along. How he had them fixed up was to paste two pages together, along the edges, and then cut out a square place in the middle, where the X-Ray was slipped in so you could hold it up to the light and look through it. After the X-Rays came the receipted hospital bills, the receipted doctors' bills, and the receipted nurses' bills. That rap on the conk cost him $322, believe it or not.

      "Is a nice, hey?"

      "Swell. It's all there, right on the line."

      "Of course, is a not done yet. I fix'm up red, a white, a blue, fix'm up fine. Look."

      He showed me where he had put the fancy stuff on a couple of the pages. He had inked in the curlycues, and then colored it with red, white, and blue. Over the naturalization certificate, he had a couple of American flags, and an eagle, and over the Greek Army picture he had crossed Greek flags, and another eagle, and over his wedding certificate he had a couple of turtle doves on a twig. He hadn't figured out yet what to put over the other stuff, but I said over the clippings he could put a cat with red, white, and blue fire coming out of its tail, and he thought that was pretty good. He didn't get it, though, when I said he could have a buzzard over the Los Angeles County license, holding a couple of auctioneer's flags that said Sale Today, and it didn't look like it would really be worth while to try to explain it to him. But I got it, at last, why he was all dressed up, and not carrying out the chow like he used to, and acted so important. This Greek had had a fracture of the skull, and a thing like that don't happen to a dumb cluck like him every day. He was like a wop that opens a drug store. Soon as he gets that thing that says Pharmacist, with a red seal on it, a wop puts on a gray suit, with black edges on the vest, and is so important he can't even take time to mix the pills, and wouldn't even touch a chocolate ice-cream soda. This Greek was all dressed up for the same reason. A big thing had happened in his life.

      It was pretty near supper time when I got her alone. He went up to wash, and the two of us were left in the kitchen.

      "You been thinking about me, Cora?"

      "Sure. I wouldn't forget you all that quick."

      "I thought about you a lot. How are you?"

      "Me? I'm all right."

      "I called you up a couple of times, but he answered and I was afraid to talk to him. I made some money."

      "Well, gee, I'm glad you're getting along good."

      "I made it, but then I lost it. I thought we could use it to get started with, but then I lost it."

      "I declare, I don't know where the money goes."

      "You sure you think about me, Cora?"

      "Sure I do."

      "You don't act like it."

      "Seems to me I'm acting all right."

      "Have you got a kiss for me?"

      "We'll be having supper pretty soon. You better get ready, if you've got any washing to do."

      That's the way it went. That's the way it went all evening. The Greek got out some of his sweet wine, and sang a bunch of songs, and we sat around, and so far as she was concerned, I might just as well have been just a guy that used to work there, only she couldn't quite remember his name. It was the worst flop of a home-coming you ever saw in your life.

      When it came to go to bed, I let them go up, and then I went outside to try and figure out whether to stay there and see if I couldn't get going with her again, or blow and try to forget her. I walked quite a way off, and I don't know how long it was, or how far away I was, but after a while I could hear a row going on in the place. I went back, and when I got close I could hear some of what they were saying. She was yelling like hell and saying I had to leave. He was mumbling something, probably that he wanted me to stay and go back to work. He was trying to shut her up, but I could tell she was yelling so I would hear it. If I had been in my room, where she thought I was, I could have heard it plain enough, and even where I was I could hear plenty.

      Then all of a sudden it stopped. I slipped in the kitchen, and stood there listening. But I couldn't hear anything, because I was all shook up, and all I could get was the sound of my own heart, going bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump, like that. I thought that was a funny way for my heart to sound, and then all of a sudden I knew there was two hearts in that kitchen, and that was why it sounded so funny.

      I snapped on the light.

      She was standing there, in a red kimono, as pale as milk, staring at me, with a long thin knife in her hand. I reached out and took it away from her. When she spoke, it was in a whisper that sounded like a snake licking its tongue in and out.

      "Why did you have to come back?"

      "I had to, that's all."

      "No you didn't. I could have gone through with it. I was getting so I could forget you. And now you have to come back. God damn you, you have to come back!"

      "Go through with what?"

      "What he's making that scrapbook for. _It's to show to his children!_ And now he wants one. He wants one right away."

      "Well, why didn't you come with me?"

      "Come with you for what? To sleep in box cars? Why would I come with you? Tell me that."

      I couldn't say anything. I thought about my $250, but what good was it telling her that I had some money yesterday, but today I lost it playing one ball in the side?

      "You're no good. I know that. You're just no good. Then why don't you go away and let me alone instead of coming back here again? Why don't you leave me be?"

      "Listen. Stall him on this kid stuff just a little while. Stall him, and we'll see if we can't figure something out. I'm not much good, but I love you, Cora. I swear it."

      "You swear it, and what do you do? He's taking me to Santa Barbara, so I'll say I'll have the child, and you--you're going right along with us. You're going to stay at the same hotel with us! You're going right along in the car. You're--"

      She stopped, and we stood there looking at each other. The three of us in the car, we knew what that meant. Little by little we were nearer, until we were touching.

      "Oh, my God, Frank, isn't there any other way out for us than that?"

      "Well. You were going to stick a knife in him just now."

      "No. That was for me, Frank. Not him."

      "Cora, it's in the cards. We've tried every other way out."

      "I can't have no greasy Greek child, Frank. I can't, that's all. The only one I can have a child by is you. I wish you were some good. You're smart, but you're no good."