by Walter Blum
“Thank you,” Adam said, trying not to sound unpleasant. “But I’d rather you wouldn’t.”
“I understand,” the undertaker said, nodding sagely. “Young people these days, they like being independent. I was like that when I was your age.” He pointed to the book. “You’re a reader.” He turned the book to face him so he could examine the title. “Sounds like an historical novel. What’s it about?”
“I don’t think it would appeal to you,” Adam said. Again he was afraid he might have rubbed the other man the wrong way, and his first instinct was to make amends. “It’s a love story.”
“I’m a sucker for a good love story,” Shapiro protested. “Tell me a little bit about it.”
Adam realized that this was just part of Shapiro’s sales pitch—ingratiate yourself, put yourself in the customer’s shoes; no doubt it sold a lot of coffins. But the invitation was irresistible. He launched into a lengthy recital of the book’s plot, as far as he had read, and the characters who were a bit more stereotyped than he would have liked. The story, he explained, was told from the heroine’s point of view and related how, although of middle-class background, she came to be hobnobbing with people of the aristocracy. He described the luxurious estate where the hero and his family lived and entertained.
Shapiro feigned interest for as long as he could. Eventually the subject was dropped and the two parted. In time, the book, which wasn’t in the best condition when he bought it, began falling apart at the spine and he threw it away.
***
On Sunday nights, when nothing was going on at the country club, when the Bell Tower was closed for the evening and the world seemed particularly empty, he would drive over to Sam O’Neill’s place. During baseball season, of course, Sam would be calling the game. He had a contract with WCAN that covered the entire schedule, plus a few scattered high-school basketball games. But at this time of year things were slack and he worked part-time in a garage to make ends meet.
Nevertheless, he made it a practice to be home in time for dinner, for Sunday nights at the O’Neills were special. After the food was eaten and the dishes put away, everyone picked a favorite chair and settled down in front of the little black-and-white television set for Sullivan. Officially, it was known as The Talk of the Town, but unless you were a visitor from Mars or had been stranded in the Antarctic for ten years, you knew what everybody called it. Sunday night belonged to Ed Sullivan.
The O’Neills’ house, small and cramped, had cost them five thousand dollars, with a twenty-year mortgage. In Canelius that got you a living room, two bedrooms, a single bathroom and a small yard in back. Not much, but to Adam, occupying a cramped little rented room, it seemed like the height of luxury. He hardly noticed the smell of cabbage and beans floating in the air. The sofa and chairs, worn down from constant use and in one case minus its stuffing, bothered him not a bit. The O’Neills had a home. He didn’t. That was the difference between royalty, such as it was, and being a member of the lower classes.
The O’Neills’ two little girls, Jennifer and Laura, watched Sullivan in their pajamas. This one night a week they were allowed to stay up until nine o’clock. The Sunday routine never varied: Church in the morning, baseball in the afternoon—if the Canelius Hawks were in town, the whole family trooped off to the stadium to watch.
Sunday nights and Sullivan. The country had united in this singular ceremony, something it would never do again in the years that followed. The 12-inch TV was its altar, the patron saints were people like Jimmy Durante and Topo Gigio, the little Italian puppet mouse who giggled and kidded “Eddie,” Kate Smith who sang, Louis Armstrong who played, tumblers and ballet dancers and pop stars the likes of Perry Como and the Mills Brothers, Jo Stafford and Eddie Fisher. It didn’t really matter who Sullivan had on. Ed would always pick the best. Ed knew what the worshipers wanted.
When the ceremony was over, the girls were packed off to bed and Adam and the O’Neills would retire to the kitchen, where they sat talking until well past midnight. Amy usually served coffee and baked a peach pie or an apple cobbler. She was the talker in the family. She was skinny and fair-haired with excellent bones and eyes that shone with a kind of electric energy. Sam generally listened and rubbed his cheek. He had a square face and a square jaw and wire-rim glasses that were constantly slipping down his nose, which gave him an uncharacteristically austere appearance.
The talk was about the Hawks and their eccentric owner, Ralph Kragen, a man in his eighties whose grandfather had earned his fortune in the Reconstruction days after the Civil War. There had been talk that Kragen was no longer interested in keeping a baseball team among his properties. Amy was convinced that Kragen, if he found a buyer, would have no compunctions about selling the Hawks. Sam thought exactly the opposite.
Sam’s voice had an odd flat quality to it. Newcomers to Canelius would complain at times that you couldn’t tell from the way Sam called a game what was happening on the field. A grand slam home run or a routine ground ball to the shortstop, both sounded the same, for Sam didn’t like to raise his voice, regardless of what was happening on the field.
But Sam had been around a long time, and the fans had grown accustomed to his uninflected delivery. It made him “one of us,” they said. There were some who believed he was actually a Southerner who was hiding his accent, although Sam had come to this part of the world from Ireland, by way of New England. The brogue had long since disappeared.
What remained was that easy-going, even-tempered manner that people liked and that sometimes, during an extra-inning game late at night, could also put you to sleep. Amy, in contrast, was restless and effusive. Where some women her age had taken to dying their hair, she let it grow in gray, and even tied it in a bun to give her face a more severe appearance. The O’Neills’ children arrived late in life, and both father and mother doted on them.
Amy insisted there was no love lost between the Hawks and their owner.
“But why would Kragen sell?” Sam wanted to know. “He doesn’t need the money.”
“Everyone needs money,” Amy argued. “We’re all hurting, even in this day and age. I mean, the President of the United States says we’re all rolling in it, but you don’t see anything like that in this house, do you?”
“We get by,” Sam said simply.
Sam smiled at his wife. Once upon a time, Adam thought, she must have been a highly attractive woman, but now the glittering eyes gave her a harsh appearance. Despite her appearance, she was something of a pussycat, the kind of woman who baked marvelous pies, was loyal to her husband and attended as many Hawks games as she could without neglecting her children. They loved to argue.
“Kragen’s not going to sell,” Sam repeated.
“I never met a businessman who didn’t think first about the bottom line,” Amy contended.
“The Hawks are making money,” Sam insisted.
“Which is more than I can say for us,” Amy said. She said it with a smile, but Adam detected a note of resentment in her voice.
“You’re not wanting for anything, are you?” Sam asked.
“No,” his wife conceded. “But there are lots of things we could use. If you weren’t so close-minded—”
“Just what are you referring to?”
“You know what I’m referring to.”
“Wally’s deal.”
Adam said it without thinking. They both stared at him. Amy’s face was covered with frowns; Sam seemed amused by the words that seemed to pop out of Adam’s mouth for no reason. There was a moment of tension, during which no one said anything, and then Sam burst out laughing.
“Damn!” he cried. “How’d you know about that?”
“Just a lucky guess,” Adam said sheepishly.
“You wouldn’t have been so lucky if you’d put money into it.” Sam said.
“He never asked,” Adam said.
“If he did, would you have invested money with him?” Amy inquired.
“I don’t know. Wally
’s deals always sound a little grandiose, but to be honest with you, this one—”
“What?”
Adam wanted to say that they were fortunate to have escaped Wally’s clutches, for he knew without the shadow of a doubt that the deal Wally had proposed to them was a sham. But they would think he was crazy. How could he possibly know something that was beyond his experience? Wally was always talking about people with deep pockets and deals that were going to make him a fortune, and how you were foolish if you didn’t put some of your money into the pot, and because Wally was a believer, there was no doubt that, someday, he would be a very rich man. But the time had not yet arrived for that.
“It’s just a hunch.”
“What is?”
“I don’t think this is the gold at the end of the rainbow,” Adam said. “You didn’t invest, did you?”
“No, but we should have,” Amy said, with a glance at her husband.
Sam, whose sensitivity to a situation could sometimes be almost preternatural, picked up his coffee cup and put it to his lips. “Damn, the coffee’s cold,” he said to Amy. “Do you think you could make a fresh pot?” Amy rose to her feet automatically, as she almost always did when Sam required something.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” she said and retreated to the kitchen.
Having made sure that Amy was beyond earshot, Sam leaned forward in his chair. “Listen, Adam, don’t let this bother you,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. He had that quiet, unhurried manner that suggests to many people that all the world’s problems can easily be solved with a fresh pot of coffee. “She’s just a little out of sorts today.”
“I’m sorry,” Adam apologized. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right. You understand, don’t you? It’s easy to get a little antsy when you’re dealing with someone like Wally. The fact is, we did invest some money, but only the bare minimum, and that’s what’s bothering Amy. She thinks I’m too conservative.”
“Are you?”
“I suppose I am, but you have to consider who we’re dealing with.”
“Wally.”
“Listen, it’s not that I don’t trust the guy, but money is money and it’s not always easy to come by. Anyway, you didn’t buy in.”
“No.”
“You think we made a mistake?”
“I hope not.”
Adam was dumbfounded. Here was a guy twenty years his senior—Sam O’Neill, a man he respected, a man who had already carved his niche in the world, who had earned the admiration of a wide public and was at peace with himself—here was Sam soliciting his opinion, as though he, Adam, had any idea what he was talking about.
It was funny, in a way. And yet it was bizarre.
Amy came back from the kitchen. Down the hall, one of the children could be heard moaning in her sleep, and for a moment Sam and Amy exchanged glances, a mixture of amusement and concern, the look of two people who have gone through this before. Amy was carrying a plate of chocolate chip cookies, which she set on the table. She gestured at the men to help themselves, but Adam was still in a kind of shock. He felt as though every nerve, every bone in his body was tingling. He looked down at the cookie, which seemed to have found its way into his hand as if by magic.
“What have you two men been gabbing about?” Amy wanted to know.
“Nothing important,” Adam said.
“Wally’s deal?”
“The subject came up.”
“You know something about it we should know?”
“Just a gut feeling.”
But it was more than that. He knew without question that Wally had been lying about his deal, that the O’Neills could lose what little investment they had made with him, and there was nothing he could do about it. And yet, how could he tell them? How could he explain this newfound power he’d acquired? How could he reveal to these two nice, ordinary people that he was privy to secrets that, by rights, had no business belonging to him?”
“You look like the cat that swallowed the canary,” Amy said.
“I swallowed something,” Adam said. He reached for a cookie and took a bite of it, poured himself a glass of milk from the bottle and washed it down. “You mind if I have another one?”
“Have as many as you want,” Sam said. “There are plenty more where that came from.”
8
Canelius in midsummer.
On the hottest days, it reminded him of New York. The heat came up like thunder and could match New York’s any day. But Canelius was cleaner. That made it more tolerable. You could get away from the oppressive atmosphere if you wanted, for there were oases in town and in the countryside, which was not that far away. And there were three lakes on the outskirts, not to mention the Canelius River, which arose out of the mountains in the west and descended, by a series of mergings and intertwinings, to the ocean.
But all that made for an abundance of humidity. In the heat of summer, the combined moisture seemed to get sucked into the sky, where it hung over the town like a steaming baby’s diaper. The sun beat down, the smell of tobacco was omnipresent.
On days like this, when the air was still and the town choked on its own breath, Adam would drive over to the country club, change into a bathing suit and stretch out on a towel on the sandy beach beside the lake. He wasn’t much of a swimmer. Most of the time was spent paddling around lazily, letting the cool water revive his senses after an hour or two in the sun. He was often the only man present.
On days like this, the mothers would gather on the tiny beach, lounging on plastic deck chairs, alternately dozing and gossiping while keeping an eye on their little ones, most of whom were too young to go in the water. Adam would lie there on his terrycloth towel, close his eyes and listen as they exchanged recipes and household advice, chattered about their children and their periods and their problems with husbands too involved in business to realize how dull a woman’s life could be.
It was strange how they accepted him, as though being an outsider he could be considered safe. He posed no threat. He didn’t matter, not in ways that counted. To some extent, the Jewish community of Canelius was even more exclusive than its gentile counterparts. Oh, they could be friendly and polite and hospitable. Being good Southerners they smiled a lot, but they were not about to take a stranger from the mysterious North to their bosoms. It was almost as though, in this heaving, fleshy harem of female co-conspirators, he, the outsider, was grudgingly accepted, but only as the eunuch of the country club.
Well, it didn’t matter. If the ladies let him join them on the beach—a remote listener on the fringe of the colony—so much the better. At least he was with others. He even found himself invited to lunch from time to time, but of course dinner was out of the question because of his schedule. His relationship with the women and with the community was casual at best.
Most of the time he ignored them. Lying on his terrycloth towel, his eyes closed, his arms flung out beside him, he would let his mind drift. He thought of Larry, the sad look on his face when he talked about his marriage and what it had turned into. Other times, Wally’s words would come floating through the buzz of a warm afternoon, all that chatter about selling and how important it was to have a goal, a dream, to know where you were heading and what you aspired to be.
For Wally, he thought, it was easy. Here was a man with drive, a man who knew what he wanted and could see miles into the future. Larry might sneer, but if any of those at the station turned out a success, it would probably be Wally. There was no place in Wally’s scheme of things for lying on a terrycloth towel and listening to young mothers chatter, soaking up sun and hoping that someday doors would open at a finger’s touch. If you wanted something badly enough, you worked for it—that was Wally’s ethic. You planned, you connived, you did your homework and waited for the main chance that lurked just beyond the horizon.
Not in a million years could he ever be like Wally. They inhabited different worlds. Wally’s was all fighting and scratching and diggi
ng holes in the ground, but you couldn’t help admiring the man. What a boon to know where you’re going. What a blessing to see so clearly, to march on a single road, to be free of doubts and questions. For Adam, the highway in and out of Canelius wound through a vast swamp, one day dawning exactly like the day before, the next day a replica of the one that had already been.
But Wally’s life was predetermined. So were the lives of most people, and the one thing Adam knew—as sure as his own name—was that he had no way of knowing where his life was headed, even twenty-four hours from now. Things were waiting for him out there, beyond the swamp, on the other side of the night. In his pocket was the key to an entirely new existence, one that could not be plotted.
And now, just in time, came the Midsummer Ball.
Everyone of a certain age planned to be there, even those who looked on the country club as a gigantic bore. The young ladies were encouraged to dress in their frilliest, most colorful off-the-shoulder numbers and the gentlemen came to enjoy what nature had, in some cases, supplied in abundance. The dance floor, buffed to a high polish, was overhung with yellow crepe paper. The five-piece orchestra, led by a middle-aged trumpeter with a small black goatee and a habit of rising on his toes when high notes were required, played foxtrots and old favorites by Gershwin and Porter and Irving Berlin. Now and then, the band obliged with an up-tempo number for those who were good at jitterbugging. The hand-lettered sign over the drinks table read “WELCOME TO SUMMER,” although in fact the season was already half over.
Adam had been sent an invitation, but he didn’t expect to attend since the ball was held on a Saturday night and that was a work night. At the last minute, however, Fred Foster, the man who came in to ride the board on Sundays, offered to cut a deal. It was perfectly natural for Fred to fill in. He had done it on several occasions, mostly doing station breaks and bringing in church remotes. So, the night of the ball, Fred took Evening Shadows and Adam put on his best suit—in fact, his only suit—with a nice, striped blue tie and shoes he had painstakingly shined until you could almost see them shining in the dark.
