The Feud

by Thomas Berger

  “That’s right,” said Wessel. “I first just thought it was O.K. You know, it seems like yesterday you used to send her down here when she was just a kid, to pick up something you forgot, sweet pickles or mustard or—”

  “That was a long time back,” Bobby said. If she thought about those days she would cry all over him. “I’m sorry, Alf. I never knew. You better not do that any more. And if you’re getting worried about the bill, I’ll take care of it ‘safternoon, if that’s O.K.?”

  “Aw, listen, Bobby,” said Wessel, with his sad eyes, “I didn’t mention it for that reason. I just thought you ought to know. You pay me when you can. I ain’t in no hurry.”

  Bobby realized she was going to have to come to a showdown with her daughter, and when she got home she left the groceries in the kitchen and wearily climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  But Bernice had gone, leaving a wet towel on the bathroom floor, a soap-ring inside the tub, a smeared mirror, and, in her bedroom, dirty clothes all over the place.

  Bobby went downstairs. Passing through the dining room, she saw on the sideboard something that had escaped her notice when she went by in the other direction: a piece of paper, propped against the base of a glass candlestick, a stiff piece of paper, firm enough to withstand the air currents put in motion by the movement of a woman as large as she. The sheet was imprinted with lines and at the upper righthand corner projected a tab that showed the letters XYZ. This was more of Bernice’s work. For her notepaper she had torn out the last page of the telephone-address book that Bobby had used for years. True, it was the least-used.

  The penciled note was neatly written. Maybe she had taken that page so that she could follow its lines.

  Momma the bath brought IT on finnaly! See I was late and thought You Know What, which accounts for Ernie & all. Who I never even dated before, my Gosh. Well! I don’t see anny sense in waiting around here all day every day for that momma’s boy to show up, so have decided to go back to the city anyways it’ll be one less mouth to feed now poor Daddys gone. As I am temporly out of funds I hope you don’t mind I took the silver cream & sugar (which you never use) and will hock it till I get on my feet again. Think I can get an anulment since we weren’t intimate. Yr loving d,

  Bernice

  Chief Clive Shell finally returned to the Millville police station on Saturday morning. His eye still showed some discoloration from the shiner. Ray Dooley secretly wondered whether Shell’s wife, a battle-ax named Mamie, had given it to him. Ray himself was pretty bitter, having had to stay away from his job at the plant, for which absence he would be docked, losing money, for the factory paid more than the police, and every time he tried to settle down to catch a nap, somebody would claim to have seen a mad dog foaming at the mouth, or a guy would want him to come and ticket a neighbor’s car that was blocking the driveway. And then the one important event, the only major money-crime ever attempted in Millville, so far as anyone could recall, had occurred while he was getting the only sound sleep he had had, and was dealt with by a person (furthermore pretty much of a nut) who had no official connection with the police, and in fact none whatsoever, as it turned out, with the railroad, as Ray discovered when he tried to report Reverton Kirby’s death to them. At first he could find nobody at the Hamburg yard who had ever heard of him, but finally somebody came on the phone and said, “I believe there’s some little gent of that name lives onna top floor of the Roundhouse Hotel. He don’t -look exactly like a bum, but so far as I know he don’t do no work of any description.” This information Ray thought better of sharing with Clive Shell, who was mad enough without it.

  “By God, Ray, if you wasn’t married to my sister, I don’t know! God Almighty, you was sleeping at the switch during the only bank robbery in the history of Millville?”

  “Thing is, Clive, how the devil could I know when it was going to take place?” He had explained ten or twelve times that Reverton had been instructed to wake him in an emergency, but Clive rejected that excuse, nor did he look kindly on Ray’s expedition into Hornbeck to rescue Junior Bullard. He suspected Harvey Yelton would score it as a personal triumph. Nor, though he liked Bud well enough, did he think his son worth saving.

  “Mark my words, that little pup will be going to the pen sooner or later,” said Clive. “If anybody finds dog shit smeared on their porch steps at Halloween or a dirty Kotex in the mailbox, it’ll be the work of Junior Bullard. You know that. He’s the nastiest kid in town. He always has been. He’s got some kinda grudge against the human race. You remember last summer when somebody busted in the chemistry lab at the high school and stole some acid and poured it all over the classroom next door?”

  “There wasn’t any real proof it was Junior, though,” said Ray, though he personally had no doubts. “I just feel sorry for Bud ‘n’ Frieda, is all. Especially the other night, with Bud laid up and the fire and all.”

  “You can cover up just so much,” Clive said sanctimoniously, and then he grinned in malice. “You know what I’d do if I was able: I’d throw the little bastard over the Hornbeck line and let Yelton deal with him permanent. You know, what do they call it, exile, like the Russians with Siberia.”

  Ray wasn’t any too sure about this reference. Clive once in a while read a city newspaper—as Ray’s wife, the chief’s own sister, said, “if he found one somebody threw away”—and he was inclined to show off what he read there, while being in reality the most ignorant man Ray had ever known.

  Nevertheless Ray laughed diplomatically. It would be to his advantage if Clive got distracted by his hatred of Yelton. “Yep, Harvey wouldn’t thankya for that.”

  Clive’s big nose twitched. “He’d prefer the little Bullard girl. Little kids is what he likes, you know. In any other town he’d be arrested as a sex fiend. How’d you like him patrolling a schoolyard where your little daughter was playing jacks?”

  Ray really felt guilty in being a part of this character assassination, and anyway he hoped to get away before the bank robbery came back as the conversational subject, so he moved toward the door, saying, “I guess I’ll be—”

  Clive said, “Just a minute. Joo check the Wanted circular for any rewards offered for this Reno Fox? You know, Kirby was what you call in facto a deputy police officer of this department. Remember to say that if anyone asks. Which means any and all rewards are payable to the Millville Police Department.”

  “Of course you don’t mean the one the bank is paying?” asked Ray. “Bud Bullard’s getting that one as Reverton’s next-of-kin.”

  “I be damn,” said Clive, striking his desk with two extended fingers. “I’m gonna look into that.”

  Ray said quickly, “I think public opinion’d be on the other side, Clive. You know, your term comes up for renewal next spring.”

  Shell made a disgruntled face. “You’re a real crapehanger, ain’t you. And it’s all your fault this ever come up inna first place. A police officer don’t sleep on the job! Which means he ain’t ever caught, anyhow.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “You been here all week, you can stay a little while more, while I go down the bakery and get myself a sweet roll or somepin. I missed breakfast this morning. The little lady’s under the weather.”

  Ray was desperate to get home. “Whyn’t I run down inna cruiser and get it for you?”

  Clive grimaced. “Because I wanna pick it out myself. I like them carmel rolls with the nuts on ‘em, but that Dutchman don’t always have them fresh but maybe a day or two old, and he’ll try to put them over on you. I might take an apple turnover instead—unless all of them are stale too.” He smirked proudly. “He wouldn’t let anybody else bite into something and then turn it down.”

  Ray was always being surprised by new ways in which Clive managed to throw his weight around.

  * * *

  On Tony’s arrival at the bakery the Dutchman gave him a white apron and overseas cap, just like those he himself wore. After sweeping out the shop, Tony cleared from the showcases all t
he pastry which his employer pronounced too stale to sell at the regular price. Some of this was placed on a table in the corner. No sign or label was posted, because the status of the day-old goods was presumably self-evident to the customers. Then some of the stalest cake and bread was taken in back to be transformed into crumbs, for certain uses on the premises (for example, crumb-cake) or to be bagged and sold at retail. Finally, the Dutchman made a selection to be given to a maiden lady who was coming around from the old folks’ home, which was situated in the unincorporated area south of Millville. He assured Tony that these products could be revived by being sprinkled with water and run through a warm oven. It was a revelation to Tony that the public good could be served in a bakery.

  After the cases were emptied, he washed them with soapy water and then in clear and dried them with clean rags. Then he and the baker filled all the shelves therein with loaves, rolls, cakes, muffins, cupcakes, cookies, and other items in various sizes and textures and flavors.

  Just before eight the Dutchman’s wife came down from upstairs, where they lived, and opened the shop for business. She was a rosy-cheeked woman, and she wore an apron so white it almost hurt your eyes to look at it. Her hair was pinned up under a round white cap.

  Her husband introduced Tony, but not vice versa, and as yet Tony had not even learned the baker’s own name, so he just called her “Ma’am.” She instructed him to make sure his hands were clean at all times, and that if something fell to the floor he was to clean it up immediately with dust brush and pan, and if it landed icing-down he was to fetch a wet sponge, and after anything of this kind he must wash his hands. And of course if he went to “wash his hands,” he must wash his hands thereafter: he immediately understood this to mean if he went to the toilet.

  The Dutchman at last concluded his own tasks and went upstairs to sleep till the middle of the afternoon. The other bakers were already gone when Tony got there at seven. It was an unusual profession, but a very interesting, clean, and fragrant one, and Tony was looking forward to following it for the rest of his life.

  Customers began to arrive, and while the Dutchman’s wife got first choice of them, whenever more than one was on hand Tony stepped in and filled the orders and even accepted the money, though if change was needed he waited for the woman to make it at the cash register. But soon enough, during the occasional lull, she began to give him lessons in the operation of that machine and predicted that before long he would be proficient at it.

  Not long after ten the Dutchman’s wife said she had to run upstairs to her kitchen to check on the pot roast she had put to simmer, and if any customer came in meanwhile with whom Tony needed help, she would be back in a minute.

  She lingered for a moment and smiled maternally upon him. “You’re a real good worker. I bet your folks are proud of you.” She didn’t have a special accent and seemed a real American.

  “My dad passed away the other day. I hope it ain’t too long before I can work full-time. We could use the money.”

  “I’m real sorry to hear that, Tony.” The baker’s wife shook her head in sympathy. She looked as if she might have hugged him to her thick bosom if she had known him only a little better. “You got a tough row to hoe. I don’t know, I think he’s got everybody he can use right now back in the bakery, and I can handle it out here. We ain’t getting rich on this business. But gee, I sure will ask him for you, I really will.” She turned toward the door that led upstairs, but then turned back. “Listen, if nobody comes in while I’m gone, you help yourself to a doughnut or cupcake or something nice. Just put it down where they can’t see it if a customer comes in, because it don’t look good. And if you lick the icing off your fingers, be sure and wash your hands.” Her broad back went through the door.

  Tony’s mother had made him a larger breakfast than usual for his first day on the new job, rolled oats, flapjacks, and so on, and after being on the premises for several hours he did not find the aroma of the baked goods as seductive as it had been on his arrival, but he believed he was hardly in a position to pass up an offer of free food. He looked down through the glass tops of the cases. Doughnuts were not attractive to him, the memory of Eva Bullard being too recent: he had avoided thinking of what he would do if she ever came into the shop while he was on duty. He was no brooder over past unpleasantnesses and no worrier about personal problems that might or might not be on the horizon. The way it had worked out, with the death of his father, he wouldn’t have been able to give Eva the attention she deserved, anyway, and he suspected that she was too young, along with being of the wrong sex, to understand what it meant to be the man of the family.

  There was a little scalloped-edge tart that looked good, with a filling that seemed to be of cherry jam. A row of these was nearest the front glass, just beyond a rank of similar pastries filled with pineapple. But first came a high lemon-meringue pie, which he might well graze with his forearm in reaching way out to the tart. He removed the pie and placed it on the flat top of the case, alongside a tray of blueberry muffins displayed there.

  He had bent again and was reaching for the cherry tart when the front door opened, disqualifying him temporarily from having the treat. When he straightened up he was looking at the cop he had punched the week before. The eye still showed the yellowish remains of the bruise.

  The funny but fortunate thing, however, was that the policeman seemed to have made no identification of him. In fact he was ignoring Tony altogether in favor of the baked goods in the case before them.

  “Them turnovers look mighty good ‘smorning.” The cop bent and pointed. “Apple or cherry?”

  As it happened, Tony didn’t know. “It’s my first day here,” he said. “I better wait till she comes back down.”

  “Don’t matter all that much, I guess,” said the cop. “Either one’s’ good, but I like to know what I’m putting my teeth into.” He began to beat a rhythm against the glass with the point of his index finger. “Sure looks like a leetle bitta red juice is leaking from that there one. You can’t see it from in back. Come around here and take a look.”

  Tony did as asked: he went around the counter, and just as he was bending over to look into the case, the cop seized his right wrist, yanked it painfully up into the small of his back, and crowed, his mouth at Tony’s ear, “Gotcha, you stinker!” He forced the arm higher. “On your knees, you little mutt.”

  But to have obeyed the command would have been to hurt his arm even more, for the cop continued to exert an upward pressure on it. Therefore Tony spun on his feet, turning toward his enemy, and as he did so he picked up the lemon meringue pie with his left hand and smashed it, over his shoulder, into the policeman’s face.

  Eyes and nose covered with goo, the cop fell back and let him go. Tony was out of apron and cap before he reached the door, and he dropped them behind him. Too bad: there went a beautiful career! He raced through the back alleys and side streets until he had put many blocks between him and the scene of his latest crime, and before long he was back in good old Hornbeck, which he realized he had been a fool ever to leave.

  Harvey Yelton was on routine patrol in the cruiser when he saw just the fellow he had had on his mind the last couple of days. He pulled up in the gutter, opened the right-hand window, leaned across, and said, “Hey, Tony. Get in.”

  This invitation, even when given benevolently, made any civilian nervous, and Harvey, even when benevolent, didn’t mind: respect for the power of the law could never be too great.

  When Tony got himself seated, Harvey said, “I’m real sorry about your dad. You know, him and me went through school together—well, as far as either of us ever went, I mean. I never made it to high school. He might of, I don’t remember.”

  “Huh-uh,” said Tony, shaking his head.

  “Well, he was sure a swell guy. Know what we used to call ‘im? Beeler the Peeler. ‘Cause he got a real bad sunburn oncet and his hide come off in sheets. That’s why we gave him the name…. Not to change the subject, but
I been thinking, I’m not getting any younger my own self. We could all go any minute, you know. It just ain’t right for me not to have a relief man of some kind on this job. By God, the Council’ll find money for every other thing, painting the mayor’s office, buying themselves new chairs, putting up Welcome to Hornbeck signs on all the roads into town, but they don’t gimme a part-time patrolman. I ain’t gonna take it any more. Over in Millville that fat slob’s not only got Ray Dooley, but when the bank was robbed other day, there was even some other guy on duty. Fact is, he’s the man got himself killed.” Harvey turned and looked out his own window for a moment, and then he came back to Tony.

  “Your mom said you was going to be eighteen soon.”

  “Next month.”

  “You wanna work for me? Come on after school for a couple hours, and then maybe some of the weekend?” Tony seemed dumfounded. Harvey said, “I don’t know what they would pay. They might try to take it out of my salary, but they’ll shit too.”

  Tony finally said, “This is some surprise.”

  Harvey winced. He said, “You know, me and the missus never had any kids of our own. Her health was always too delicate, see. So I ain’t got any of my own flesh and blood to pass anything on to. I mean, what I learned on this job year in and out for the last twenny. This here’s the place to find out about people, boy. It’s a lot better’n a college education.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Tony. “You think you could tell my mom it would be O.K. for me to quit school right now?”

  “Women are funny, you know,” said Harvey. “They’ll generally try to keep you all tied up in something that ain’t practical, particularly if it’s supposed to improve your mind or character, like church or school and so on. Did you ever hear of one who wanted you to fight or go hunting or play poker or anything? Women always wanna keep you from doing the things you want to do.” He sighed. “But maybe God made ‘em that way to see us boys don’t go all to hell in a handbasket. Sure I’ll talk to her.” He put out his hand. “Deal?”