A Lost King: A Novel Page 5

  “I think he’s silly,” said Peggy.

  I held the red pepper up like a magician so that everyone could see it and then I popped it seeds and all into my mouth. Carefully I chewed it. I sat there with that cherry pepper exploding in my mouth and scorching my tongue and lips. Tears filled my eyes. I looked at Peggy. Suddenly I forgot the burning pepper and I started to cry because I loved her so much. A moment later I thought of my mother and I was crying for her. At last I cried because my father and I were alone.

  “Oh, Paul,” said Sally. “That pepper must be terrible.”

  “It is terrible,” I said, with a sob.

  “I got to hand it to you, Paul,” said Joe.

  “It’s the silliest thing I ever saw,” said Peggy. “It really is. The other boys go out for football and basketball. Edmund Hatcher is studying hard to make the honor society. You’re the oldest boy in the class, Paul, and all you ever do is eat hot peppers. I don’t even know why I watch you. I think I’ll tell Miss Riordan on you.”

  There was no need to tell Miss Riordan. Miss Riordan knew everything about me. I was usually late for school and I did nothing to make up for it when I arrived. I fell so far behind in my work again that I stopped trying to catch up. Miss Riordan sent a note to my father. He tore it up. She sent another note. Finally she made a special visit to the house. I knew when she was coming and so I hid in the cellar.

  Miss Riordan spoke to my father without swallowing words. It was a surprising thing to me. After it happened I took a big bold tone with him and trumpeted around for my rights. He listened and watched me with wild eyes and that head cocked like a starved eagle. Suddenly he jumped up and slapped it out of me.

  First of all he offered coffee to Miss Riordan. She refused.

  “So you came over to tell me the boy’s failing?” he said. “You could’ve saved yourself the trip.”

  “Paul is always late,” said Miss Riordan. “It’s only a matter of minutes at times, but it’s a poor habit.”

  “All right. I’ll get him out of here earlier.”

  “And he can’t keep his mind on his work. The truth is, he can’t seem to get his mind on it in the first place. He was looking out the window so much that I moved him to a desk near the wall.”

  “And then he looked at the wall.”

  “Well, yes. Sometimes I have the feeling he’s asleep with his eyes open. These high-school years are important, Mr. Christopher.”

  “It’s one thing at a time with him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I mean just that. These days it’s the harmonica. He sleeps with it under his pillow. Let me tell you exactly. One night I was cleaning the wine barrel in the cellar. The light burned out. I called up for him to bring a bulb. There were no bulbs. I told him to get the one from the bathroom. He brought it down. He was playing the harmonica all the while. The bulb didn’t work. Something was wrong in the switch. I sent him up to get a candle. He came down playing the harmonica and holding the candle. I told him to bring the light close to me. I was scraping the inside of the barrel. He was playing and looking the other way. He brought the candle closer. Do you know where he put it? He practically put it in my ear. I hollered and knocked it out of his hand. He ran upstairs. I fell over the barrel and ripped my leg open. I was lying in the dark with my leg bleeding. That ear was like a red-hot bird on my head. It was quiet in the house. And then guess what? I heard him playing the harmonica on the porch. I think it was the same song he was playing before. I tell you the boy’s not there!”

  “You don’t mean that. Isn’t it true he works hard? I’ve heard from one of the girls that he helps a great deal in the house. By the way, Mr. Christopher, I had a feeling there was something on his breath the other morning.”

  “I let him put whiskey in his coffee when it’s cold out. It doesn’t hurt him. It warms him up. He never catches cold.”

  “I wonder.”

  “You think it’ll put a craving in him?”

  “I think it makes him light-headed and then drowsy.”

  “It isn’t the whiskey.”

  “Please don’t misunderstand me about Paul. He’s a sweet boy and has a very fine mind. All our tests prove it.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t you think so?” she said, sharply. “I try to build his interest by giving him certain responsibilities. I let him collect the test papers and guard the halls during study hours. He helps to stack books in the library and he takes the tickets and watches the door during the noon movie period.”

  “Very pretty. I’m a watchman because I’m done for. He’s just starting out and he’s a watchman.”

  “He does everything but his school work.”

  “There’s no sense in him. It’s our fault, too. We were too old when we had him. We lost one son and wanted another.”

  “Really, Mr. Christopher, I’m shocked to hear you talk like this.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret. He takes after my brother. My brother could talk and make me laugh out loud. And I’m not a laughing man. He could talk and make a woman cry just with his words. The old women in the neighborhood used to come and listen to him so they could cry. I saw it myself. But he couldn’t put one foot after another to help himself. Once he bought an old harp. When I told him to look for a job he said he had a job right there learning to play that harp. I sent him back to Italy. He died soon afterward. He didn’t belong here or there or anywhere.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “He never even learned to play the harp.”

  “But each of us belongs somewhere,” said Miss Riordan.

  “It’s words and music with them. They belong to the wind.”

  “Paul needs understanding.”

  “That’s why he’s in school.”

  “I don’t mean that.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” said my father. “I’ll cut out the whiskey in his coffee and we’ll see what happens. How’s that?”

  “I don’t understand you, Mr. Christopher.”

  “Listen then. Pretty soon he’ll be done with schooling and it’s a different thing. When I was his age I left my family and my country. I came here and worked in a coal mine. This boy plays the harmonica and forgets where his shoes are. He’s beginning to think the harmonica will get him through life. I’m doing what I can for him. He needs food and a place to stay. I’m doing my best. Later he’ll need iron in his bones and I’ve got nothing to do with it.”

  “But you have everything to do with it. Don’t you realize that the death of his mother might have had serious effects on him? No doubt life has been hard for you, Mr. Christopher. Is that a reason to make it hard for your son? It’s a good reason to make it as pleasant as possible while you can.”

  “Talk to me about school and books. Don’t talk to me about life. I’ve had enough. I don’t even know why my heart goes on beating.”

  “Perhaps it’s for your son.”

  “Will you take a cup of coffee?”

  “No, Mr. Christopher, thank you.”

  “You’ll settle for words?”

  “You may be right,” said Miss Riordan. “There are times when words belong to the wind.”

  And so she left.

  Down in the cellar I made a solemn promise to pay attention and do better in school. Even now it gives me delight when I think of Miss Riordan. Time and again she helped and encouraged me. She spent long hours tutoring me for examinations. True enough that the students mocked her. She was thin as a board and had this habit of looking down sudden and hard at you as though you were a bug. And yet I remember a softer light in those eyes. Now and then I stayed after school to play the harmonica for her while she put papers in order and gathered her books. I was never in any hurry to get home. I would sit at my desk and play song after song for her. No sound could be heard in the building. Sometimes she stopped to look down at me and listen closely. There were precious moments when her eyes would go soft with some remembered love and I played and played
with heart pounding inside me as though that love could be saved to light her down dark ways forever.

  5

  All along I had this feeling our troubles would be over if I managed to graduate from Lincoln High School. I was wrong. A summer of trouble was beginning. My father was right when he said it would be a different thing for me out in the world.

  “No one will hold your hand like that teacher,” he said. “The harmonica days are over. Now you learn to march.”

  He heard drumbeats that I never heard.

  Right after graduation I went out to look for a job. The newspapers were calling it an interval of economic adjustment and it seemed that during such intervals there was no work to be done. Every morning I shaved and put on a clean shirt and took the bus down to the Public Square. I had high hope even though I spent half of each day filling out long applications to prove I was qualified for nothing. Several employers promised to call and give me a chance when openings occurred. Some were disappointed to hear I had no plans for college. A man called P. P. Peterson studied my application for a while and then called me into his office.

  “Let’s see now,” he said. “Do you want me to tell you how this looks to me? You were probably the oldest boy in your graduating class. You say you were in the lower third of the class and from your grades I’d say you were lucky they didn’t divide into tenths. Your last year, however, was very good. Now you don’t look strong enough to do any heavy work and at the same time you can’t type. I see one of your hobbies is playing the harmonica. Well, Paul, that’s something.”

  “I play well.”

  “I’m sure you do. At least I hope you do since it’s what you do.”

  He burst into laughter. He brought his left hand down again and again on the huge polished desk. In a moment he regained control of himself. He looked at me as though at an intruder.

  “Here’s the thing,” he said. “I can’t pay you for playing the harmonica. Now don’t misunderstand me. All this doesn’t really matter too much. I wouldn’t be afraid to train you up for something. I just don’t have a spot for you. But I like your looks and I’d like to give you some advice. Do you mind?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Never sit down at an interview until you’re invited to sit down. Smile once when you introduce yourself. Don’t keep smiling and melting away like that in the chair. It looks like you’re falling in love with me. Be serious and alert. Pretend there’s a bee on the nose of your interviewer. Watch the bee. And now I’d like to wish you good luck. Remember that bee.”

  It seemed there was a bee in my ear. I heard the same thing everywhere I went. I was getting so discouraged that I started out later in the morning and came home earlier in the afternoon. One morning as I used to do when cutting school I went down in the Terminal Tower to wait for trains. My father had a mysterious first cousin who lived in Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, and so I moved into a crowd of people and looked eager as though expecting him on the next train. There was a deep spreading rumble and then a hot hissing from the level beneath us. The train had arrived. A few minutes later people were climbing the stairs and riding up the escalator. All at once I was caught in the midst of laughter and kissing and tears. I smiled welcome to everyone and most of them smiled and nodded to me. After meeting two more trains I strolled out to sit on a bench in the Public Square. I tossed peanuts to the fat bobbing pigeons. So pleased was I that I bought a cherry pie to please my father. He had developed a taste for sweets since his retirement from work.

  Late in the afternoon I went home. An old friend of the family was waiting to see me. His name was Sam Ross. He was sipping wine and puffing a crooked black cigar. He looked me over. He thought it was a wonderful thing that I graduated from high school. Suddenly he pinched my cheek and slapped me on the knee.

  “Look at him,” he said. “Look at that brown hair, Carl, and those soft eyes. And that mouth. The picture of his mother, God rest her soul. Isn’t it true, Carl?”

  “I see the pie and I know it’s another wasted day.”

  “He’s found no job yet?” said Sam.

  “Ask him,” said my father. “He’s in front of you.”

  “Your father never changes,” said Sam. “The last time I was here he put the oven higher and higher. ‘But what are you cooking?’ I said. He was cooking me, Paul. He was trying to get rid of me. Why didn’t he just tell me to go home?”

  “Why do you talk about me?” said my father. “I’m right here.”

  Sam glanced at him and then turned to study me again. He scratched his chin and puffed that cigar. He thought a while and then offered me a temporary job as an assistant on his watermelon wagon. It sounded very good. All I had to do was sit among the watermelons and pass them out to customers when he brought the horse to a stop in a shady place.

  “Why not?” he said. “You’ll be earning some money. I’ll give you six dollars a day. Wait then. Make it seven. Wait then. I understand you play the harmonica. You can play and let the people know we are there. Make it eight dollars a day.”

  “Do you call that a job?” said my father. “Do you?”

  “What do you call it?” said Sam.

  “I call it a waste of time.”

  “Selling watermelons is a waste of time? I make my living this way. Is eating watermelons a waste of time? How about growing watermelons? Really, Carl, you make no sense.”

  “It’s no job for him!”

  “Don’t be foolish,” said Sam. “The boy is tired from all that studying in school. He should rest his mind a little. Besides, he’s earning nothing now. He spends money every day looking for work. It’s now he’s wasting his time.”

  “Would you want your own son to work on a watermelon wagon?”

  “I don’t have a son. I don’t even have a daughter.”

  “I mean if you had a son! What would you do?”

  “What would I do?” said Sam. “I’d buy a cannon just to fire a salute. I’d be the happiest man in the world.”

  “Listen to me. He’ll find work if he keeps looking for it. No one who wants work will be without it for long.”

  “Why don’t you come out with me?”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “I want company in the day,” said Sam. “I’m sick of talking to that horse. Besides, Carl, it will do you good to get out of the house. You live in the past here. You look back and back and you don’t even see what’s in front of you.”

  “I see what’s in front of me. That’s why I look back. Now leave me alone.”

  “In the end we’re all left alone. Either to live or die. As for Paul, he can look for another job while he’s with me. He can go whenever he pleases. Meanwhile he’ll be earning eight dollars a day. He can help you with the bills here.”

  “I get my pension and the social security. It’s more than enough. The house is paid for. I don’t need help from anyone.”

  “I wish you would come out with me,” said Sam. “I’ll give you nine dollars a day. Paul plays the harmonica, it’s true, but you talk nonsense that’s better than music. By the way, how is Nina?”

  “They leave when the ship is sinking.”

  “And you want them to sink,” said Sam.

  “You’ve got an answer for everything. Who sent for you?”

  “Do you want me to talk here or look out the windows? And why don’t you wash the windows? And look at the plaster falling.”

  “Put your own house in order!”

  “I pay a woman to put it in order. And I pay a terrible price.”

  They argued for another hour. In the end Sam had his way by insisting it would be a most practical thing for me to take the job and earn some money until I found work more suitable to my education and natural powers. Meanwhile I could rest my mind a little.

  So it was that three days later I went out with Sam Ross for the first time. He had his wagon loaded at the wholesale fruit exchange on Woodland Avenue and then he came to pick me up on the South Side. W
e traveled around the city. I played the harmonica and Sam called out that watermelons were for sale.

  “Eat and drink and wash your face!” he said.

  Children came running and laughing. Their mothers followed them. Everyone was delighted to see us and it seemed a wonderfully perfect way to make a living. All that day we were out in the fresh air and sunlight. Round us was the sweetness of watermelon like cut grass. Deep in the gold of afternoon we sold out and I lay back in the wagon to watch the sky and listen to the quickening clip-clop of the horse Tina.

  “She knows when she’s going home,” said Sam.

  He was urging her on and laughing at her. He had a golden front tooth. Laughing now, his brown eyes were lost in a web of wrinkles and his mouth curved toward ears aslant as though in sudden glee. That flashing tooth of gold seemed to tell while keeping the rare secret of laughter. It was good to be with Sam on that watermelon wagon.

  The job, however, troubled everyone in Lincoln Court. At first the neighbors gaped at me in utter bewilderment. I didn’t understand and so I gaped back at them. Meanwhile my father was muttering and scratching his head. Nina scolded me on the telephone. Peggy Haley thought it was the worst thing that happened since the war. She came over to tell me about it.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said.

  “What for?”

  “I think it’s awful,” she said. “Selling watermelons!”

  “Awful? What’s so awful about it? What is this? Do you know what you’re talking about?”

  “Yes. Everyone is saying the same thing.”

  “Really? At the same time? Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll make a song out of it and then everyone can sing together. What’s awful about selling watermelons? People sell all kinds of things. Tell me one thing better than watermelons.”

  “Anything. Anything is better than going through the streets like that in a wagon. And with a horse. Everybody sees you there.”

  “And we see everybody.”

  “Listen a minute, Paul. Think of the other boys we went to school with. Some of those boys are getting ready to go to college. Look at Edmund Hatcher.”