The Walking People

by Mary Beth Keane

  "How will we do this?" Greta asked, back out on the driveway, as she, Julia, and Ned stared into the dark mouth of the truck.

  When they'd loaded the truck in the city, the men who'd gathered to see them off had all pitched in, taking an arm of the sofa, one side of a dresser. Here, it was just the three of them. They took all the small boxes out first, Greta inside the truck handing boxes to Julia, and Julia hurrying back and forth between the truck and the garage. The plan for bigger, heavier things was that Greta and Julia would take one end while Ned handled the other. In theory, the plan was perfect. Two women, Ned estimated, equaled the strength of one man. In practice, the plan was a failure. Two bodies couldn't carry the same end around corners, through doors. Greta couldn't find a good grip. She nearly fell down the steps and had a bookcase land on top of her.

  When only the heaviest pieces remained, they convened again at the mouth of the truck and stared inside. All three of them were soaked through, and dark streaks of dust and grit smudged Greta's face where she'd pushed her hair out of the way. Of the three, Greta appeared the most spent, and she sagged against the side of the truck so completely that she had to stop herself from sliding to the ground. "If I sit down," she said to Julia, "I'll never get up again." Then she slid down, her back against the wall of truck, until her legs folded and her backside hit the black tarmac of the driveway.

  "Will we knock?" Ned asked, nodding toward the house next door and then the one across the street. From the back of the house came James's voice shouting, "Dad! Dad, look at me!"

  "Will we?" Greta repeated, staring hard at her new neighbors' houses, their windowed, perfectly proportioned faces impassive in the early summer sun. None of them had seen any signs of life in these houses, not even a passing car.

  Greta struggled to her feet, peered once more into the darkness of the truck, and considered how many things were still left to go. Her shoulders were drawn up in an exaggeration of the posture she had whenever she came home from a double shift. Her thin limbs appeared even thinner against the bulky load that remained.

  "No," Julia said, turning her back on the other houses and pushing up her sleeves. "We'll do it. Ned and I. You go in and check on Dad."

  Ned raised his eyebrows, sized her up from head to toe. "I better knock," he said to Greta.

  "I said I can do it," Julia said, squatting beside Greta and Michael's dresser and feeling along the base for a good grip. When they lifted it, Ned brought his side up faster, and the lion's share of the weight tipped toward Julia. She let go, and the dresser fell the two inches she'd gotten it above the floor of the truck, landed with a thud, and missed her fingers by a hair. "Again," she said, this time using her legs, the length of her back, locking her arms in position and willing herself to step outside her body, think of something else, anything else, while every muscle from her calves to her neck burned and strained.

  "Do you have it?" Greta asked, hovering around Julia as they moved slowly down the ramp of the truck, Ned walking backward, Julia forward. "Don't hurt yourself. It's only a dresser. Don't hurt your back. Let go if—"

  "The door," Ned said, and Greta rushed forward to open the screen door of the house.

  ***

  Two hours later, all six of them were on the deck eating the ham sandwiches Greta had bought that morning on the corner of Eighty-fourth and Second. Michael gobbled his down as if he'd been lifting all day, while next to him, Ned picked and nibbled, turning the food around in his mouth and forcing himself to swallow. Julia's legs and arms were trembling, a detail James found hysterical as she tried to bring her soda to her lips. "You've got a workhorse here," Ned said, clapping Julia on the back as if she were a man his own size. He pushed his sandwich away, and Michael eyed it as he brushed crumbs from his lap.

  "Fair play to you, girl," Michael said, squeezing Julia's aching shoulder with all the strength in his good arm.

  "Who wants an ice cream?" Ned asked when the rest of them had finished their sandwiches. He feigned weakness when James and Eavan threw themselves on him, pulled him by his thick arms, shouted their requests.

  "I guess I should run up to the shop to get a few things, but I thought I'd wait until tomorrow," Greta said.

  "I'll run up," Ned volunteered. "I'm sure there's a market up on the main street."

  "Oh no," Greta said, looking pointedly at Michael. "They don't need ice cream. They had ice cream last night."

  "Yessssss," James cried. "Yes I do need it. I really neeeeed it, Mom."

  Michael shifted on the lawn chair, answered Greta's look with one Julia couldn't quite read. More secrets, she guessed. They seemed capable of anything now. Come to think of it, they were always asking and answering questions of each other with looks thrown across tables and rooms. Theirs was a language of facial expressions and widened eyes. She wished she'd read the rest of those letters. Maybe her memory had embellished what she'd read, blown it all out of proportion. She tried to remember portions of the letters word for word but suspected herself of adding words and sentences—sometimes to make things better and sometimes to make things worse. She probably misunderstood.

  "You see?" Ned said, and turned to Julia to ask where she had put the keys to Michael's car.

  ***

  Greta was silent for a full hour after Ned drove away. No, he hadn't smelled of drink or had the look of drink in his face, but a drinker was a drinker. And she'd let James ride with him that morning. Jesus. Michael had said that Ned was fine to drive and he'd never put one of his own in danger, but Michael had some strange liking for the man and maybe didn't want to insult him by questioning him behind the wheel. Travellers had a casual attitude toward drinking anyway, or at least that's what Big Tom used to say. Wouldn't be the least bit ashamed to be caught drinking at twelve in the day. Earlier. And sitting above on the stone wall that led to town, where everyone would pass them. Maybe Michael didn't realize the danger. Not to mention the talking the man got up to when he was drinking. He talked enough the rest of the time, but with a few in him he got weepy on top of it and talked about the old days when Kate was still in New York, before they had any babies, and meeting up with Michael and Greta, and the occasional dance or two, not that Greta and Michael went in much for the Irish dances. Once, at the apartment, late on a Friday night, after listening to him pour himself another from the brown bottle he'd brought with him—still in the paper bag, as if she couldn't tell what was inside—Greta heard him reminiscing about the days when he first met Michael, when they were still movers. That night, with Greta in kitchen fetching ice, he'd asked Michael loud and clear whatever happened to that sister of Greta's who used to live with them?

  What if Julia had been home, Greta demanded of Michael after Ned finally left. Or Eavan, who could put two and two together faster than most adults. They'd never told the children anything about Johanna living in New York. As far as the children knew, Johanna had gone straight to California and then gone home again when Lily got sick.

  "You're making too much of it," Michael had said. "Poor man," he'd added, and Greta saw red.

  "Poor man?" she sputtered. "I don't see what's so poor about him."

  "Greta, it was your own mother who told me we have to watch out for each other here. We're from the same place, Ned too. So what harm if he does his drinking here instead of in a pub with strangers who don't care whether he lives or dies?"

  How dare he use her own mother's words back at her, as if he knew Lily as well as Greta did. "She meant you and me," she corrected him. "Not us and any drunk Irishman who comes along. And truth be told, she really only meant me and Johanna. In fact, she once wanted to pay my way home and leave you here. Mine and Julia's way home. She said you could do as you liked."

  That had shut him up so good he was still turning it over the next morning, until over oatmeal in the kitchen she told him she'd made it up. Lily had loved him. She was sorry. He'd just made her so mad.

  "I thought that might be it," he'd said, and hunkered over his bowl an
d dug in.

  Now Greta felt sure that Ned Powers was about to go on a bender, in their car, in their new town, and she'd done nothing to stop him. And when he came back he'd be full of memories and all sorts of blather, and all three of the children around to listen—nothing else to do. Greta busied herself with sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing the already spotless bathtub, toilet, underneath the kitchen sink. After two hours she strode out on the deck, pink rubber gloves dripping, and announced to Michael, "I knew it." Back inside she muttered, "I knew it, I knew it," until it started to take on the rhythm of a song.

  Thankfully, James and Eavan had put ice cream out of their minds the moment a young girl knocked on the screen door and introduced herself as, "Jessica, two houses down, going into fourth grade." After a quick introduction, but before agreeing to go outside to play, Eavan had raced from room to room in search of Julia, and once she found her, dragged her by the hand to the bathroom, where Eavan sat perfectly still on the closed toilet seat as Julia redid the braid of that morning. "I'm coming!" she shouted as soon as Julia snapped the rubber band tight around the end.

  "Wait," Greta said, grabbing Eavan mid-flight before she disappeared out the door. "Just wait," she said again, feeling that there was something she should say or do here but not sure what was called for. "Where are you going?"

  "Outside," Eavan said, nodding toward Jessica, who was waiting on the front step.

  "Are Jessica's parents home?" Greta asked. Eavan shrugged. "You can go as far as Jessica's house on that side and the house next to us on the other. And don't cross the street unless you come back here and ask me."

  "Mom, there aren't even any cars on this street. We don't even—"

  "Eavan," Greta cut her off. "Don't start. And bring your brother."

  Another two hours—sheets on beds, curtains on rods, Eavan and James full of stories of aboveground swimming pools and sprinklers that spit water in circles that could follow a person around a yard, all glimpsed—they swore with fingers crossed—from within the boundaries they had been given, and Greta was unable to speak. They needed that car. Between the closing fees and the lawyer and the real estate agent and the rental truck and Julia's new bed and the first mortgage payment, they needed that car to return safe and sound.

  "You have to understand—" Michael began when Greta went to help him inside, but she held her hand in front of her face and closed her eyes.

  Finally, around nine o'clock, Michael, Greta, and Julia all heard the sound of Michael's diesel engine coming up the block. Eavan and James had fallen asleep watching television in Greta and Michael's room. "Greta," Michael said, grabbing her wrist. "Not a word. You let me handle this." He dropped Greta's wrist, and she walked over to the couch and sat with her two hands pressed between her knees.

  "I see it now," Greta said. "It was him all along. The accident at work. He nearly killed you. Him and the drink. I knew it. Didn't I say it? He's like a wrecking ball that thinks it—"

  Michael hushed her and then said to Julia, "You stay here."

  Whenever Eavan or James did something wrong, Greta often told them about an old dog she'd had at home. Julia had never heard of this dog before Eavan and James came around, so she listened closely whenever Greta told the story. It was Greta's older brother's dog, really. Greta had known him only when he was very very old, but one thing she remembered was that when the dog did something wrong, they could tell just by looking at him that he was guilty. Just one look at his lowered head, and Julia's grandmother would send Greta to check whether he'd dirtied the drying laundry with his paws or shit in one of the bedrooms. This is the story Julia thought of when Ned Powers opened the screen door and stepped inside.

  "How's it goin?" he asked, closing his eyes against the strength of the overhead light.

  "Ned," Michael said. "Julia's going to drive you home tonight. How does that sound?"

  "Ah no," Ned said. "Not with the way that girleen worked today. Have you got your driver's license, Julia? Well, that's grand."

  "I drove up here this morning, remember? I'm almost twenty-two."

  "I was twenty-two once," Ned said. "We all were," he added, and burst out laughing.

  "You set, Ned? She doesn't mind." Michael turned toward Julia with a look that said he was sorry.

  "I couldn't," Ned said, and then a long pause as he scratched his neck. "I'm dead tired to tell the truth."

  "Ah, go on," Michael said. "All that hard work you did today. I'd drive you myself if I could." One hand clutching the banister for balance, Michael reached toward his friend with his right hand outstretched.

  "I don't mind," Julia agreed as the men shook hands.

  "Let him take the bus," Greta said from her perch on the couch. "Let him sober up on the damn bus."

  "I'll drive you home, Ned," Julia said again.

  "Well then, I'm going with you," Greta said, standing up.

  "Leave it, Greta," said Michael.

  "Come on, Ned," Julia said, and was out the door and into the car before Greta could make it outside.

  Julia didn't know how to get to the Bronx from Recess. From Manhattan, yes, they'd been to the Powers's apartment a few times for dinners, two Easters, an occasional Thanksgiving, and for the Christening parties of Ned's two babies. One dead, Julia reminded herself. Dead for years now.

  Instead of running back inside to ask her father what road to take, what bridge, she decided to drive back into the city and go the way she knew. Ned, awkward in the small bucket seat, seemed to have trouble finding a comfortable arrangement for his shoulders, and he kept pulling on the portion of the belt that crossed over his chest. "Jesus," he muttered after a while, and pressed the button on the buckle that set him free. He tugged at the crotch of his jeans, pulled at the collar of his T-shirt.

  "Well, thanks a million," Ned said as Julia eased the car away from the curb. The interior smelled of cigarettes and the sharp, musky smell of whiskey once it has made its way down the hatch and out again through the pores of the skin.

  Julia turned onto the main road and maneuvered the car forward through the dark tunnel of oak and evergreen trees that lined the road on both sides. Greta was usually so calm, but something about having Ned Powers around made her crazy. It wasn't the drinking, Julia felt. It couldn't be. One of the newer tenants in 222 was a drinker, and Greta had felt so sorry for her, told everyone to be kind to her, how she used to spiff herself up the day after being found, once again, locked out of the building and asleep in the vestibule. Then, as Ned cleared his throat beside her, Julia remembered that Ned was one of the few people who'd known her parents from the beginning, all the way back to a furniture moving job her Dad had when he first arrived. They lost touch for a while, but had run into each other again when they were both shaping for day labor at a construction site in Queens. After another few years of seeing each other off and on, Ned had called Michael one morning in the mid-1970s and asked if he could help him get on as a sandhog.

  "I knew your Dad before he had any gasúir," he once said to James, picking him up and swinging him over his head. This was before he had any children himself, no little boy to love and grieve, no wife to accuse him at night and cry to go back home. "Even Julia?" James had asked. To James, Julia seemed almost as old as his parents. "Oh, Julia," Ned had said. "Yes, Julia. Julia was there almost since the beginning. I wasn't counting her."

  "No problem," Julia said now, reaching over to turn on the radio. "I like driving."

  "And you did college, didn't you, Julia?" Ned said, leaning his forehead against the cool glass of the window, then abruptly shaking himself upright, rubbing his face vigorously up and down, up and down, as if scrubbing it with a washcloth.

  "I just finished."

  "Good for you," he said, and leaned forward to squint at a faint light in the distance. "I was useless at school myself. The times tables and seven goes into ninety-nine how many times and all that."

  "I hated math too," Julia said, seeing what he was seeing, finally. She w
ondered if they'd been wrong about him. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all if his eyes were sharp enough to have caught that light in the distance, sharp enough to have recognized it for what it was from so far away.

  "I'm out of fags," Ned said, eyeing the small store where it sat glowing, twinkling in the middle of the parking lot, growing bigger and brighter the closer they came to it. "Would you mind stopping? I'll run in."

  Julia pulled in, parked in the spot closest to the front door, unbuckled her seat belt. She could hear the rush of cars on the highway just beyond the row of trees at one edge of the lot. The entrance ramp was just a stone's throw away.

  "You don't have to get out," Ned said. "You stay."

  Julia ignored him, and inside the overbright store she looked at the magazines and the newspaper headlines while Ned paced up and down the aisles, pretended to search for something he couldn't find, finally walked up to the refrigerated beer section and pulled the door open. He took out a six-pack of Budweiser and then another. He walked over to the register and placed them carefully on the counter. "And a pack of Camels," he said to the young, pockmarked man behind the counter.

  "And a 7-Up," Julia said, sliding the single can across the counter.

  "And a 7-Up," Ned repeated without looking at her.

  Back in the car, as he cracked open the first can, Ned pointed out how weak American beer was compared with other beers, how watered down, how American beer could hardly be called alcohol at all, how despite its weakness Budweiser was a good union beer, a well-made beer, as good as any German or British or Irish beer, and how he'd never drink Coors, not if he was dying of thirst in the desert and someone handed him a cold Coors in a chilled glass.