Typical American (18 page)

He felt his mind open, open, open.

"Right now," said Helen. "If you don't want spank."

The girls crabbed their way up, using their hands and feet in combination.

Ralph lay his sopping jacket in Helen's arms, across the shoes. "Bring me my bathrobe.'*

"Girls, be quiet," called Helen, even though they were already quiet. The jacket dripped. "Girls, close that door."

Dry and fed, Ralph settled himself in front of the telephone. He never did find Grover's card that day Theresa stumbled upon him sneezing amid his papers. But now he picked up the receiver, and experimentally let his fingers dial; and sure enough, he found that they recollected easily what his mind had strained uselessly to remember.

Ringing. Ringing. No answer. What surprise was that? This his ear, his neck, his elbow seemed to recollect. How many times, after all, had he tried Grover's line in the days after their drive? A hundred times, without luck.

"Ding residence."

Ralph started. "Grover?"

Everyone knows this much about faith: that it is preceded by doubt the way day is preceded by night. Ralph recalled the priest at church once saying this. "Risk faith. Doubt doubt." Ralph tried. He recited from Norman Vincent Peale, " *I believe I am always divinely guided. I believe I will always take the right turn of the road.' "

Meanwhile, in the darkest booth of a deli, over double cheeseburgers with everything, Grover was chummily confiding how he'd been wrongly charged with buying barrels of stolen grease. "How could I know those barrels were hot?" he was saying. "You tell me now."

Ralph shook his head, obligingly outraged. He noticed how Grover, though still handsome, had grayed since he saw him last. His voice, correspondingly, had lowered and become grav-

elly, so that his jaw, which had always jutted, now seemed to reinforce an impression of firmness and purpose. How long had it been since they last talked? Six years? Seven? Many years, they'd agreed. Grover hadn't seemed much interested in figuring out the exact number, its significance eclipsed by this story, which Ralph wasn't quite sure he believed. He wanted to believe it, though, if only because smart, prosperous Grover had remembered him almost right away, and demanded to know why he hadn't called before, and immediately invited him to supper, where he'd asked Ralph all about his job, just like a long-lost friend.

"The restaurants put their grease in these barrels, which they then leave out in back of their stores. Collectors haul it over to me. Okay? But sometimes these crooks — don't ask me where they come from — they go sneaking up there and rustle the barrels away. So then what? Does the grease look any different? I implore you to answer."

Ralph shook his head.

"And would you do business with crooks? Knowingly?"

Ralph shook his head again.

"Of course not, right? How can you trust a crook?"

"Impossible."

"You're right on the money. And that's what I'm going to tell the judge, you wait and see."

Ralph ordered another double cheeseburger. Grover lit a cigarette.

"Now." Grover restarted the conversation. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course. Old friends."

Grover leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "I've been giving your work situation some consideration. Maybe I can be of some ... help."

"What do you mean, help?"

"Let's just say some kind of help." Grover smiled mysteriously, his gold tooth gleaming. His breath smelled of smoke.

"Like your fats and oils boss help you?"

"Something like that. But first I must request that you write me a check."

"A check?" Ralph drew back. Now was the time to have faith, of course, but it was hard. Doubt doubt, he told himself. Still he could not help asking, "Why?"

Grover waved one hand, stubbing out his cigarette with the other. "Listen, forget it. If you've got to know why why why, we're not walking on the same side of town."

Grover got up to go to the bathroom. Ralph played with his food, reflective; and when Grover returned, asked, "How much would that check be for? If I write."

Grover looked as though he would not reopen the discussion, but then said, "Listen. You can have it right back if you want it, you just have to ask. What do you think I am, some two-bit crook? I've got no designs on your nickel. I just have to know who I'm dealing with. You ask why why why, now that alerts me to certain possibilities."

"Like what?"

"Like the possibility there's no deal here."

"How much would that check be for?"

"Oh, I don't know. Say a grand."

Ralph gulped. "I can have it back?"

"I do believe I just said that, verbatim."

Ralph wrote.

"To get somewhere," said Grover, "a man has to understand his assets and his liabilities. You, for instance, prefer not to lose this money."

"Yes."

"For reasons having to do with your family."

"Yes."

"Family can be an asset. Or it can be a liability, depending."

"My wife — Helen, you remember — is asset. Also I have two little girls."

Grover lit another cigarette.

"But my sister —"

"I remember that sister of yours." Grover shook his head.

"Skinny one."

"How could I forget." Grover shook his head again. "That sister of yours, that Old Chao —"

"How did you know!"

Grover watched his cigarette ash grow. "Come on, now. Everybody knows."

"Everyone?"

A faint smile.

Ralph felt suddenly overcome with exhaustion. "I should not ask this ..." he started to say; and though he thought he should not continue, he did. "Maybe even you do not know ..." Graver's head was disappearing in a cloud of smoke. "But so many months, I wonder."

"What about?"

"Wonder." Ralph hesitated; it seemed to him that his head was ensconced in smoke too. "Do they talk about me?" His voice, small and scratchy, seemed to originate from the back of his head, up behind his ears.

"Do they talk about you!" Grover laughed. "No, no, they've got better things to, ah, discuss."

"And do they laugh?"

"At you? No, no." Grover reassured him again, but was so close to guffawing that he had to stub out his cigarette and drink some water. "Listen. Enough of this," he went on. "You keep your wad for now. If you get the itch to do a little business, mail me something next couple of days. Okay?"

Ralph nodded as though in his sleep.

"No obligation. Sleep on it. And listen, in the meantime — I notice you don't have a watch."

"I have one. But I don't wear it."

"Allow me to present you with this one." Grover took off his watch and presented it to him with a flourish. "In consideration of your joining me this evening."

"But I already have watch. Solid gold."

"No wonder you don't wear it. This watch is practical. Look here." Grover turned it over. "Stainless steel. Please accept it. A small consideration for your time."

Could he keep the check and the watch both? It seemed vaguely wrong to Ralph, in violation of some code; he felt confronted with a language close to one he knew, yet strange. What to do? The next day, even as he pondered the question, he ran into Old Chao, who raised an eyebrow at his shoes — or so Ralph was convinced. If only Helen had thrown them out, as ordered! But she had refused to, until he had replacements; and so he'd been caught in shoes that swooped up gaily at the toes, like a clown's. The unstitched soles flapped so loudly that people turned to look at him as he passed in the hall.

During lunch he slipped the check into the mail.

Then, nothing. Until Helen discovered what appeared to be a mistake in their bank balance, that is. She called the bank. She called him at his office.

"My love seat," she wailed.

He checked the time by his stainless steel watch. The watch, he'd discovered, ran slow. He called Grover feeling foolish.

"I've been trying to get hold of you!" Grover said.

It had been his error of judgment, Grover explained (over a quadruple-decker club sandwich deluxe), to have once done business with the lunatic owner of a fried chicken take-out counter, who now claimed to have had his grease stolen several times. That Grover would not have knowingly bought stolen grease went without saying. ("How can you trust a crook?") Still, this lunatic chicken king was planning to testify against Grover. "So I figured, why not do the guy a favor?" Grover flicked his lighter. "It pays to be nice."

"It pays be nice," repeated Ralph.

"For instance, how about if I did this guy a favor and bought

that business of his? He's been wanting to get out for some time. A real cash cow, this operation, but he's got the Florida itch. You know — retirement beckons. We Americans, our brains turn to golf balls when we're sixty-five. So my idea is, maybe I try and locate this guy a buyer. I think, that business of his could be the start of a real success story. This could be the start of a self-made man." He blew a smoke ring.

Spellbound, Ralph watched the ring rise. "I know what your meaning is," he said finally. "You mean me."

"I can take care of everything, don't worry."

Ralph thought. "Does he make money?"

"An insightful question. The answer: he rakes it in."

"So how come he have trouble sell?"

"He's asking the moon for a price, that's why," Grover explained. "But this business of his is a cash cow, I'm telling you. Listen. This is how I got it figured ..."

What luck! Ralph spent the better part of his drive home congratulating himself on his good fortune. At every traffic light, he regarded the other people around him, stopped in their cars; how many of their stories were of hardship following hardship, orderly as boats in a canal. And how extraordinary his life was already. Was it really possible that it was only just beginning? He thought about what Grover had said, that this could be the start of a real success story. This could be the start of a self-made man. Of course, it was a modest start. He'd been almost disappointed to see the store, the smallest shingle building he'd ever seen stand up by itself. But who knew where it would lead? He saw past the present moment as though with a magic scope; through this special lens he saw an empire rise, grander and mightier than anything his father had commanded, even in his heyday. Ralph tingled with anticipation. Small doubts rained on him from time to time, but mostly he floated in hope, fabulous hope, a private ocean, gentle and green. At home, he stood once more on hard ground. It was the

talking that did it; how could he make words convey what had happened, what could happen? Shuo bu chu le. The conversation ground along, an exchange of facts.

"So why doesn't Grover buy it himself*" Helen wanted to know.

"Even an innocent man has to watch what he does" Ralph explained. "If he bought it himself it might look as though he were trying to bribe the owner into not testifying against him."

"Isn't that what he's doing?" said Theresa.

Ralph ignored her. "We do Grover a favor and he does us a favor. For us, it's a sure deal. No money down! Do you know what that means? We buy the business in our name, then sell it quietly to Grover. Then we buy it back from him, gradually, out of our profits, until it's one hundred percent ours. If we don't make money, or if we change our minds, I go back to teaching. It's that simple. We have nothing to lose."

"Is the store dirty?" asked Helen. "Greasy?"

Ralph promised she wouldn't have to work there.

"Sounds — what is that English expression? — too good to be true," she said.

"But it is true. And who knows what might happen after that—"

"That man," said Theresa, slowly, "is a liar and a cheat."

"Like you?" Ralph answered, offhand. "You have nothing to say."

Helen knotted her knuckles.

"It's a chance for a new life," Ralph continued.

"But you already have a new life," said Helen. "What about teaching? You just got tenure."

"I'll take a leave of absence. If I ask Old Chao to arrange it" — he looked hard at Theresa — "I believe he may say yes."

the Changs had run flat life through a fancy new sewing machine, and seen it emerge smocked. Papers were signed; the art of seasoning was revealed to Ralph, the key to crispiness.

And the next thing anyone knew, Grover was dropping in to say hello all the time. It was because of the woods behind their house. Ralph had tipped Grover off about the developer being in over his head; Grover was thinking to buy him out. This necessitated visits to the property. And wouldn't it be rude of him not to stop by while he was in the neighborhood? "Coming!" Helen would warn, if Theresa was home, so that she would know to shut herself up in her room. Sometimes Theresa plugged her ears so she wouldn't have to hear Grover's booming voice. "These walls are like paper/' she began to complain. "These walls are no walls."

Variations: "Anyone who wanted to could kick this door in" "We should get stronger locks"

But what door, what lock, could keep out of a house what someone inside hankered for? Just as Theresa had found a way to an affair, and Helen a way to her split-level, Ralph had found his way to Grover; and as Theresa and Helen had been changed for the finding, so had Ralph, in inalienable ways. The sorts of things Ralph talked about had begun to change; his voice had taken on a new boldness; and with other small changes of manner, it became suddenly striking that he and Grover were both five four, more or less, with haircuts they sometimes slicked down, sometimes let reach for the sky like wiry versions of the Kennedys' lawn. Their faces remained very different. But from the back it was noticeable that they moved more and more alike. Both strode rather than walked; both stood very straight when they stopped; and when they ate, both tended to stick their elbows in the air as though they were sitting at an unusually high table, that came to their chins.

"Who knows? Maybe we're long-lost cousins," Grover joked once — to which Theresa exclaimed when she heard, "Impossible!" And of course, as she said, she ought to know. But one

day, Ralph told Mona and Callie a long story that began with their great-grandmother's father, who was, he said, a rich