“Listen,” he said, “neither of you ever even seen it. So what do you know about it? Did you go over to Marin County?” They did not answer. “Just me,” he said. “You’re talking about something you never even saw.” To Lydia he shouted, “And you never met Mr. Harman either, so you don’t know anything at all.”
They gazed back, without answering. He had the floor.
“You better come take a look at it,” the old man said to Al. “You drive over there and take a look.”
“Hell,” Al said, “I don’t want to see it. I’m just giving you advice. My advice.”
“Sure,” the old man said. “Just advice. You won’t go look; you know if you see it you’ll admit you’re wrong.” He wheezed with exultation; he had them, both of them. “I been in business a long time, a lot longer than you. You’re just a bum. A bum who sits around. You know what you do? You—” He broke off.
“I sell used cars,” Al said in a wooden tone.
“To colored,” the old man said.
Al was silent.
“And that’s all you’ll ever be,” the old man said.
“I got a couple of irons in the fire,” Al said.
“At least you’re not crazy,” the old man said, laughing. “Isn’t that right?”
Al glanced up at him.
“Like me,” the old man said.
Al shrugged.
“You can come and visit me while I’m sitting up there,” the old man said. “In my new auto garage with the mechanics. Everything spic and span.”
“Okay,” Al said. He seemed to have no energy now. No more willingness to fight.
Lydia slipped from the room. Back, probably, to the kitchen or her bedroom; anyhow she was gone. Only the two of them remained.
“Off to a seminar,” the old man said.
“What?” Al murmured.
“Off to class.”
Al said, “Well, I better get going.”
“See you,” the old man said.
His hands in his pockets, Al moved off toward the hall and the front door.
“Don’t look so depressed,” the old man called after him. “Cheer up.”
“Sure,” Al said, turning. “Lots of luck,” he said.
“Same to you,” the old man said.
Al opened the front door. He hestitated, started to speak, and then shut the door after him. Presently the old man heard the front door open again, stealthily. She’s going after him, he said to himself. At that, he laughed with delight. Sitting on his couch in his bathrobe he laughed to himself, thinking of Lydia and Al conferring in secret outside on the front porch, trying to figure out how to do something. Find some way to stop him.
* * *
As Al Miller opened the door of his car he heard a voice behind him. Lydia Fergesson came hurrying down the steps and across the sidewalk. “Listen, Mr. Miller,” she said. “Just a moment so that I can talk to you.”
He seated himself behind the wheel and waited.
“I depend on you,” she said, her black eyes fixed on him.
“Hell,” he said, “I can’t do anything.” He felt anger and futility. “Do it yourself.”
“He would never have told me anything,” she said. “He never said a word, only about his fall; he would go on and give his money away to the crook with no word to me ever, and leave me with nothing. That is how he feels about me.”
Al closed the car door, started up the motor, and drove away.
Why the hell did I go over there? he asked himself. Why didn’t I stay home?
They’re both nuts, he said to himself.
How’m I going to get out of it? I have my own problems. Let them take care of theirs. I don’t have the time. I can’t even solve my own problems; I can’t even get anywhere with them, and they’re really simple. All I need to do is find another location for Al’s Motor Sales.
And then another thought came up from deep inside him; he had not been aware of it, but it had been there nevertheless. I hope he does get swindled, he thought. I hope Harman takes him for everything he has. It’s exactly what he deserves, what the two of them, him and that crazy Greek wife, deserve.
What I ought to do is find some way to swindle him myself. That was it; that was really it.
He had worked with Jim Fergesson for years, and surely if anyone deserved to get the money it was he, Al Miller, not some well-to-do customer driving a Cadillac who knew the old man only as the guy who greased his cars. I know him better than anyone, Al said to himself; I’m his best friend. Why does it go to Harman and not me?
He thought, But if I tried to swindle the money from the old man, I’d foul it up and land in jail. There’s no use even trying to; I can’t swindle the old man or blackmail Harman. I just don’t have the talent.
Why can’t I be like him? he asked himself. I’m a failure, and Chris Harman is what I ought to be; he’s everything I’m not.
But, he wondered, how do you get to be like that?
TheFe was no easy way. As he drove along the street, Al Miller sorted through every possible way; how did a person like himself become a person like Chris Harman? It was a complete mystery to him. A riddle.
No wonder everyone looks down on me, he thought.
What I’ll do, he decided, is go by Harman’s house, and when he comes to the door I’ll tell him I want to go to work for him. I’d like to be a dirty-record salesman. I’ll tell him that. He can find something for me; if not that, then something else. I can repair the pressers that make records. Or I can work at his house, on his cars; he doesn’t have a mechanic now. I can devote all my time to his Cadillac and his Mercedes-Benz, polishing them and greasing them and aligning the front ends.
What I ought to do, he thought, is show some real ambition and make up something really good; I could tell him, for instance, that I have a mystical ability, that I can heal sick cars, or sick record-pressers. It’s done by a laying-on of hands. Or by singing. Something that’ll really attract his attention. Isn’t that how the great Americans in the past made it? They all had a flair. When they were, say, nineteen years old they got into Andrew Carnegie’s office for one minute and they told him they never saved string, or that they charged twenty-five dollars an hour for their time. That did the trick.
I have to get it exactly right, he told himself. I have to think until I come up with the really terrific new idea that will swing it. Anything less and I am doomed; I’ll go on like I am, and never be anything more than I am.
This is my chance to break out and be something.
My whole life, he told himself, my whole future, depends on it. Can I do it? I have to. I owe it to Julie, and to myself; in fact, to my family. I can’t wait any longer; I can’t go on drifting like this. This is opportunity knocking, this guy Chris Harman; this is the way it’s been set up and if I ignore it I’ll never be given another chance. That’s the way it always is.
And then something else occurred to him. I think I’m out of my mind, he thought. That whole business in there, that argument with the old man, drove me crazy. I’m out of my skull.
And yet there was something in the idea. What would I be like, after working around Chris Harman for a while? he asked himself. He might give me something really good. Probably he’s got his hands into so many enterprises that he’s got plenty of jobs to dole out; he probably employs hundreds of people.
In fact, he thought, Harman’s probably hiring and firing all day long.
Should I call the district attorney and report Harman as a crook? Or should I try to blackmail him for trying to swindle the old man? Or should I show up at his house or his place of business and try to talk him into hiring me? Or should I just go home and go to bed with my wife and get up the next morning and go to work at Al’s Motor Sales?
It was a hard question to answer. He could not make it out, try as he might.
What I need is a drink, he said to himself. Ahead the green and yellow lights of a bar could be seen, a bar he had never been to, but still a
real bar, one that had a permit to sell wine and beer. So he parked the car and got out and crossed over to the other side of the street and went into the bar.
That whole argument really shook me, he said to himself as he pushed past people and up to the bartender to order his drink. Finding out about Harman swindling the old man, and then having him laugh at me and insult me because I told him the truth. Too much. That’s what I get for trying to wise him up, he realized. That’s my reward for breaking the news to him; he doesn’t want to hear it, so I get the blame.
“Hamm’s beer,” he said to the bartender.
Poor sick old nut, he thought. Wrapped up in his bathrobe and his slippers on his feet, watching TV for all he’s worth. What’s going to become of him? Maybe he’ll have a heart attack and die, or another heart attack. Maybe he’s dying now. Maybe he had a stroke and part of his brain isn’t functioning; it certainly could be that.
But he’s always been that way, Al realized. He’s no different, only more determined. The stupid old fart.
And then a terrible thought came to him, worse than any of the others. Suppose Mrs. Lane was just trying to keep me in the market, he thought. Trying to keep me from going into business with someone who already has all the real estate he can use; suppose what she said about Harman was just a sales pitch to keep me on the ropes.
That’s a really smart woman, he realized. She can wind me around her finger; it’s like having my mother after me, back in St. Helena. Maybe I’m wrong about Harman; maybe he isn’t trying to swindle the old man after all. My God, maybe I told the old man wrong. Maybe he’s right about me, me and my colored friends, and all the rest.
He drank his Hamm’s beer and ordered another. He stayed at the bar far into the late evening, drinking by himself, thinking it all over, admitting to himself again and again—it always seemed to be there—that he absolutely lacked the ability to see how things really stood. It seemed to be a major defect in him, and it continued to stare him in the face the more he thought about it. The defect did not go away; it was real. It was ruining his life.
And what could he do about it?
Several hours later he thought he had the answer. As best he could, he made his way across the bar to the phone booth. There he looked up Mrs. Lane’s home phone number, put in a dime and dialed.
When she answered, he said, “Hello, there. This is Mr. Chris Harman. Why are you telling lies about me? What do you have against me?” There was a lot more he had intended to say, but at that point Mrs. Lane interrupted him, more with a giggle than with her sentence.
“What you doing, Mr. Miller?” She went on giggling. “I know your voice; you can’t fool me. Sound like you out somewhere celebrating.”
“I wouldn’t swindle that old man,” he said. “He’s kept my cars running for years. You must be out of your mind. I ought to hire a lawyer and sue you. How’m I going to keep my cars running now that he’s selling his garage? You ought to feel sorry for me instead of persecuting me.”
“You mean Mr. Fergesson?” Mrs. Lane said. “You talking about him?”
“You’re against me,” Al said.
Mrs. Lane said, “I never heard anybody carry on so. Where you at?”
“I’m at the Forty-One Club,” he said, holding up the package of matches the bartender had given him. “On Grove Street. They cater to only the best of trade.”
Giggling, Mrs. Lane said, “You better go home, Mr. Miller. And let your wife put you to bed.”
“Why don’t you come down here and I’ll buy you a beer?” he said to Mrs. Lane. “Bring your husband if you have one. If you don’t, bring him anyhow.”
“You really crazy,” Mrs. Lane said. “You go home; you hear me? You go home.”
“I hear you,” he said. He hung up the phone, left the bar, looked around until he had found his car, got into it and went home.
9
The next day Jim Fergesson felt well enough and rested enough to dress and go down to the garage. He did not plan to do any heavy work; he intended to do only light stuff, and to be there to answer the phone when his customers called. He wanted to explain to them what had happened, his accident and what he intended to do.
The mailman appeared at nine o’clock, shortly after the old man had unlocked the big wooden doors. Among the usual ads and bills he found an odd-looking letter. It was in a personal stationery envelope; it did not look like a business letter. The name and address—his—had been written by means of an old typewriter; the letters were out of alignment, and partly red, and dirt-filled.
At his desk he opened the envelope. The letter inside had been written on the same old machine.
Dear Mr. Fergesson,
I understand you are thinking of going into a business situation with Mr. Christian Harman, the man who owns that record business up on the corner of 25th Street. Seeing as I am in a position to know about matters of that sort, I advise you that you better be careful as Mr. Harman is not reputable. I would sign my name to this only Mr. Harman is smart enough that he would sue me. However I do know about what I speak. Also, I am sorry that you have sold your garage.
There was no signature on the letter.
Did Al write this? the old man asked himself. He began to chuckle to himself as he reread the letter. It was the kind of gag that Al would think up; he could imagine Al tracking down an old typewriter, the older the better, the dirtier the keys the better, and then boning up in his mind as to how to phrase it, making it sound as unlike his usual style as possible. Making it sound like some ignorant Okie or possibly coon; yes, he thought—like some colored person.
On the other hand, he thought, maybe it wasn’t from Al; maybe all sorts of people knew about his going over to Marin County and having a look at Marin Country Gardens. The word had gotten around to the other merchants along San Pablo Avenue.
Thinking that, the old man felt angry. What business of theirs was it? Maybe they were jealous, he thought. Resentful that he was about to break away from this run-down district. Maybe it was Betty at the health food store. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that this was exactly the sort of letter that old Betty, with her worries and fads, would write. I think I’ll go over there, he decided. And show it to her and get her to admit she wrote it.
Are they all talking about me? he wondered. Getting together and discussing me? God damn them, he thought. He felt anger at all of them, the whole bunch.
But suppose Betty hadn’t written it. If he showed it to her then, he would appear foolish. Better not to show it to anybody, even Al, just in case Al hadn’t written it either.
But then a new sensation came to him; it entered him so gradually that at first he did not notice it.
It pleased him to think that they were talking about him.
Sure they are, he decided. Word’s got around. Al spread the word. This letter proves it.
Things always got around fast along the street, from one store to the next. Rumor and gossip, about everybody’s business.
Leaving the office, he walked out of the garage and down the sidewalk. A moment later he was opening the door of the health food store, greeting Betty at the same time.
“Hi, Jim,” she said, rising and going to get the Silex coffeemaker. “How are you, today?”
“I’m okay,” he said, seating himself at the counter. There were a couple of other customers, middle-aged women whom he did not know. He glanced around, but there was no one whom he recognized, except of course Betty.
“Anything with your coffee?” Betty asked. “A roll?”
“Okay,” he said, turning the stool so that he could watch the entrance of the garage. “Listen,” he said, “you heard about me, did you? About what I did?”
At the shelf of rolls, Betty halted. “You told me about selling your garage,” she said.
The old man said, “Listen, I bought another garage.”
The wrinkled, elderly face showed pleasure. “I’m glad,” she said. “Where is it?”
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“In Marin County,” he said. “A new one. I’m putting up a great deal of money, more than I got for the old garage. I got an inside tip. I can’t tell you exactly where it is, naturally. You’ll find out in due time. These things take time.”
“I’m really pleased,” Betty said. “I’m so glad.”
Accepting his cup of coffee from her, the old man said, “I guess you know this guy Chris Harman. He always brings his cars to me; he drives a ’58 Cadillac. Very well-dressed man.”
“I may have seen him,” Betty said.
The old man said, “I’ll tell you; I’m taking a real risk. A real risk. Here’s the risk.” He felt more and more excitement; his words came out almost faster then he could speak them. “I have to keep my eye on this guy Harman. A lot of people wouldn’t take the chance.” He winked at Betty, but she gazed back without comprehension. “He’s got a reputation,” he said.
“What kind of reputation do you mean?”
“A lot of people think he’s a big-time crook,” the old man said.
Her face showed dismay. “Jim,” she said. “Be careful.”
“I’m being careful,” he said, chuckling. “Don’t worry about me. He’s really a well-known crook. He’s skinned a lot of people. He may skin me. I wouldn’t be surprised. It could happen.” He laughed out loud; now her face showed both worry and agitation. “Maybe I’ll wind up with no garage and no money,” he said. “Wouldn’t that be a hell of a thing? Things like that do happen; you read about them in the paper every day.”
“Jim, you be careful,” Betty said. “You watch your step. You spent years acquiring the money that you have.”
“Oh, he might get me,” the old man said. “He’s smart.” He drank down more of the coffee, then set the cup back down. “I have to get back,” he said. “I just came over to break the news to you.” Getting carefully to his feet, avoiding any too-sudden movement, he started to the door. “If you see me going by with a tin cup,” he said, pausing at the door, “you’ll know why.”
Humpty Dumpty in Oakland Page 11
