“And?”
“Can’t think of a thing. Oh, sure, Sam was a cad and a bounder and a womanizer, all those good things. But do you know, it fit him like a new pair of spats, or a hunting cap, or the wrong color shoes to go with a dark suit. He no sooner did a terrible thing than it just melted away. Everyone said, oh that Sam, my God, that awful boy.
There, did you hear? He never grew up. I haven’t done much of it myself. But he made an art and occupation out of it. You caught him peeing off the roof and he shrugged and said, checking the weather for tomorrow.
Found him in bed with your current love and he gave you that fourteen-year-old lad’s blink and said, wanted to find out just what you see in her! Good show. Continue! And he sailed out the door.
And you were so busy laughing, yes, laughing, you forgot you were in a rage? My God! Remember when he went to France for the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the French Revolution and told all his Parisian friends he had returned for their Failed Revolution?
And before they could kill him he listed all their failures! The Revolution, ending with the Terror and Napoleon. The monarchy come and gone, the 1870 Paris Commune when the French fought the Hessians outside and killed each other inside the city. 1914? Failure.
We had to save France. 1940, 1944? We fought and brought de Gaulle into Paris. Failure, failure, failure! And out of all these failures, said Sam, as his friends lifted their knives, what have you done? Created the most beautiful country in the world, and the most beautiful city in history: Paris. And his French friends sheathed their knives and kissed his cheeks. Sam! Sam!”
And now tears were rolling down his cheeks.
And now it was her turn to lean forward and say, “Know something? You loved him, too.”
“Hell, I was jealous of his love for you. Don’t tell anyone.”
“My mouth is sealed,” said Emily Fentriss, his wife in waiting, pouring more wine.
Beryl Veronique Glass finished her glass, dabbed at her mouth, reached over to dab his cheek, and rose.
“Thanks for the fifty-minute hour.”
She started to open her purse.
“Stop that,” he said. “Now, then. What are you going to do?”
“Go call my new boyfriend, I guess.”
“And?”
“And ask him to do what you said. Cover me.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?”
“You mean if I’m still afraid of answering the phone at three in the morning?”
“That.”
“Well,” she said, slowly, “I mean I hate to ask … but … could we … have. Another. Dinner? Or if that’s too time-consuming. Lunch. Or drinks?”
“Drinks,” he said. “With dinner a possibility.”
Her eyes brimmed.
“Get out of here,” Ralph Fentriss said.
“Here I go,” she said.
And kissed Ralph and his wife and went.
“Are you still here?” Ralph asked the woman at the table beside him.
“I felt as if I wasn’t,” said Emily Fentriss.
There was a young man, almost a boy, sitting at the bottom of their front steps. He did not move when Ralph and Emily Fentriss came up the walk. They stood and looked at him long enough for him to feel their presence and then he lifted his weary head and peered at them with uncertain wellspring eyes.
“Good Lord,” said Fentriss, “can that be you, Willie Armstrong?”
Willie Armstrong shook his head. “It used to be.”
“Christ, speak up. I can’t hear you.”
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” said the young man retrogressing to his previous boyhood. “Wilma won’t speak to me.”
“You haven’t been seeing Wilma for six months.”
“That’s right,” said Willie Armstrong, laying his head back down on his arms and speaking with a muffled cadence. “But she still won’t take yes for an answer. I call her every day. She hangs up.”
Fentriss mused. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“Yeah,” came the muffled response, “she won’t talk.” A thought roused Willie Armstrong to lift his head. “Will you talk to me? Can I come in?”
“Willie, do you know what time it is?”
“I lost my watch. I’ve lost everything. I’ll stay five minutes, I promise, just five.”
“Willie, it’s after midnight. Say what you must right here. We’ll listen.”
“Well …” Willie wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “You see …”
“I’ll let you men gab.” Emily Fentriss brushed by her husband. “Good night, Willie. Don’t stay out late, Ralph. Bye.”
Ralph Fentriss put out one hand to stop her but the door opened and shut and he was alone with Willie.
“Sit down, Mr. Fentriss.” Willie patted the step by his side.
“If it’s just five minutes, Willie, I prefer to stand.”
“It might be ten, Mr. Fentriss.” Willie Armstrong’s voice wallowed into a blubber.
Fentriss stared at the doorstep. “I think I will sit.”
He sat.
“Well,” said Willie, “here’s how it is. Wilma, she …”
Ralph Fentriss entered the bedroom dragging his coat and unraveling his tie. “I am now sober,” he said.
His wife looked up from turning pages in a book.
“Just back from a funeral?”
“I promised to get Wilma to take one more call. What are you reading?”
“One of those silly romances. Just like real life.”
“What are these?”
He nudged some scraps of notepaper on the bureau.
“Phone messages. I didn’t look at them. Over to you.”
He scanned one of them. “‘Urgent. Bosco.’ Who’s Bosco?”
“We never knew his last name. One of Tina’s pals. Watched TV. Ate us out of house and home.”
“Oh, yeah. Bosco.” He touched another note. “Here’s Arnie Ames. ‘Immediamente pronto or I’ll kill myself.’ Do you think he will?”
“Why not? He was a charmer, but never stopped talking.”
“Motormouth, yeah. Here’s a third. From Bud wondering what ever happened to Emily Junior. What ever did happen to Emily Junior?”
“That’s the daughter who’s in New York, writing soap operas. Does it come back to you now?”
“Oh, yeah, Emily Junior. Got out of town while the get was good. Boy, am I thirsty. Any beer in the icebox?”
“We junked the icebox years ago. We have a fridge now.”
“Oh, yeah.” He tossed the messages down. “You want to help with these panic notices? Someone’s got to answer. How about a split? Fifty percent you, fifty me?”
“Oh no you don’t.”
“I thought marriage was sharing.”
“Unh-unh.” She turned back to her book and scowled. “Where was I?”
He ruffled the pile of messages, clutched them with a weary croupier’s hand and lurched down the hall, passing one empty bedroom after another, Emily Junior’s, Tina’s, Wilma’s, and reached the kitchen to fix the messages on the refrigerator door with some Mickey Mouse magnets. Opening it, he gasped with relief.
“Two beers, thank God, no, three!”
Fifteen minutes passed and the refrigerator door stayed open, its light playing over an almost happy becoming a happy man in his early forties, a can of beer in each hand.
Another minute passed and Emily Fentriss came shuffling along the hall in her bedroom scruffies, a robe over her shoulders.
She stood in the doorway for a long moment, examining her husband across the room as he peered into the refrigerator, examined various items, brought them forth, and turned them upside down to dump their contents into an open trash bag.
Some green peas in a small bowl. A half cup of corn. Some meat loaf and a slice of corned beef hash. Some cold mashed potatoes. Some boiled onions in cream.
The trash bag filled.
With her arms crossed, leaning against the doorsill, Emily Fentriss at last said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Cleaning the icebox. The fridge.”
“Throwing out perfectly good food.”
“No,” he said, sniffing some green onions and letting them fall. “Not perfectly good.”
“What then?” she said, motionless.
He stared down into the trash bag.
“Leftovers,” he said. “Yeah, that’s it.”
And shut the door, dousing the light.
“Leftovers,” he said.
The end
