George Mills Part 21

Mills showed him the eviction orders. "This man and I are establishment," he explained. "These are official instruments of the United States of America. You can't touch us." Bob scanned them, tore the papers to bits.

"Boy, are you in Dutch!" Mills said.

"He that that Laglichio?" Bob asked. "Say on that paper I rip Laglichio. No s.h.i.t, he Laglichio?" Bob asked. "Say on that paper I rip Laglichio. No s.h.i.t, he that that Laglichio? For real now, you fellas the Laglichio boys?" Quietly the other observers had come up from their positions against the playground fence. " 'Cause it don't say nothin' on the truck here. 'Cause the truck don't say a word about what it do to the furnitures of my peoples." He opened its rear doors. "Oh oh," Bob moaned, "I look in here and I like to cry for the furnitures of my peoples. These drop cloths is filthy," he said, and tore them to shreds. "And look these scrawny, itty bitty pads. f.u.c.kin' Laglichio? For real now, you fellas the Laglichio boys?" Quietly the other observers had come up from their positions against the playground fence. " 'Cause it don't say nothin' on the truck here. 'Cause the truck don't say a word about what it do to the furnitures of my peoples." He opened its rear doors. "Oh oh," Bob moaned, "I look in here and I like to cry for the furnitures of my peoples. These drop cloths is filthy," he said, and tore them to shreds. "And look these scrawny, itty bitty pads. f.u.c.kin' Kleenex. Kleenex. What kind of candy a.s.s protection these give the furnitures of my peoples? Look all the sharp edges in here, man. It look like a open soup can." What kind of candy a.s.s protection these give the furnitures of my peoples? Look all the sharp edges in here, man. It look like a open soup can."

"Hey," Laglichio said, "get down out of my truck."

Bob was jumping up and down heavily in the empty truck. "They try to tell me, but I didn' believe them. They say Mr. Laglichio's shocks is shot. They say all he do he drive over the white line in the road and smash, smash, there go the dishes of my peoples! He take a outright pothole an' boom, my peoples's paper plates be bust." there go the dishes of my peoples! He take a outright pothole an' boom, my peoples's paper plates be bust."

"What's going on, guys?" Laglichio asked amiably, and Bob sat down on the tailgate to tell him.

"We putting you to pasture, nipple drippings," he said kindly. "The refugees got them a hot line now. Got them a Twenty-Four-Hour Self-Help Removal Service. Got a lovely Action Volunteer Cartage Platoon. Got a free, no rip-off, We-Hump-for-the-Brothers-and-Sisters Emergency Hauling Service. I'm official dispatcher for the revolution, and I'm tellin' you, d.i.c.k sweat, no authorization papers you be holdin' now nor in future neither ain't never gonna be serve."

No one touched them. They dismantled Laglichio's truck like soldiers breaking down a rifle, roustabouts pulling down a tent. It was at least as deliberate and controlled as Laglichio's and Mills's own scorched-earth procedures.

"What'd we do?" Mills mused aloud. "All we ever tried to do was help. Supplies. Vaccines and bandages, birth control, Bibles. See where it gets you? Our work here is finished," he told Laglichio.

So it was that George Mills, in grace, out of harm's way, beyond life's reach, became unemployed.

He tried to rea.s.sure Louise.

"It's not even October," Mills said. "In a month or so we'll have our first big snowfall. The caterpillars are fat and fuzzy. Trappers want their fur. Accu-Weather says it's going to be the winter of the world. I can go on the plows. They can always use a guy like me on the salt trucks. When spring comes I can patch potholes. Don't be downcast, Louise. Don't be downcast, sweetheart. There's a fortune to be made from other people's bad weather."

Louise demanded that he not speak so, that he be like other men. "You're out of work," she said. "We've got bills. The gas. The phone. The electric. I don't have a nice dress. My coat's too thin. I don't think it will last the winter. What if one of us has to go into the hospital? What if we have to see dentists? What if there's car trouble, if we need a new battery or a tire gives out? How will we pay for prescriptions? Suppose we decide to take the paper? What do we do if the TV breaks, the hot water heater? What would happen if something came up?"

"Nothing will," Mills said.

"I can't hide my head in the sand," she said. "Things happen."

"Nothing happens," George said.

"It's no joke. You're over fifty."

"I am," Mills said.

"George, it's scary."

"Don't take on, Louise. Please don't."

"Don't take on? Don't take on? on?"

"Your disasters give me the creeps, doll."

"My disasters--"

"They wear me out, Louise. They get me down, babe."

"They wear you out? They get you down?"

"Sure," Mills said, "if my banks don't fail, if no one's after my companies. If the young Turks and wise guys can't force me off the board of directors, or my country doesn't give a d.a.m.n if I defect, sure. Sure they do. You're saying I'm a failure, Louise, that the worst thing that can happen is we can't take the paper, that something could break, that we'll wash in cold water and ride on the bus."

The telephone rang and Louise went to answer it.

It was a Judith Glazer, Louise said. She had known Louise's father and regretted she'd been unable to attend the funeral. She had called to offer her condolences. Mr. Mead had told her about them. She wanted George to come see her. She had a proposition for him.

4.

From the address he'd expected a mansion, something grander than the ordinary brick home set back less than forty feet from the street where he'd parked his car, and at first-the houses beside it were larger-he thought Louise had gotten the directions wrong. It was the only house on the block without a garage. The only other car on the street, an old, pale green Chevrolet with modest tail fins and a partially deflated rear tire, was parked by the curb, obscuring the black street numbers that would have been painted there. The windows were up but George could see two people sitting inside. The woman in the back appeared to be napping. He could imagine precisely how it would feel and smell inside, almost tasting the car's close quarters, its stuffy, hundred-thousand-mile, yellowing newspaper'd, overflowing ashtray and worn seat-cover'd essence. And feel the oxidation of apples in the stale stilled air, the sky-high temperatures where cantaloupes combust. He rapped on the driver's window with his mood ring. The man looked at him but wouldn't roll the window down. George checked the address with him through the gla.s.s.

A big girl in yellow lounging pajamas opened the door for him.

"Do you work for my daddy?" she asked.

"No," George said.

She seemed disappointed but brightened at once. "Oh," she said, "you're the man from the boat club. Or are you here to see Mom?"

"Is that Mrs. Glazer?"

"I'll see if she's awake. Oh," she said, recalling instructions, "you're not a tradesman, are you? There's tragedy in our house and we're turning tradesmen away. I'm sorry." She genuinely seemed so, and started to close the door when Mills told her his name and said that Mrs. Glazer had asked to see him. "Oh, then it's all right," she said. "I'm sorry Milly didn't get the door. Milly's my sister. I'm older but she's more mature."

"Who is it, Mary? Who's out there with you? What does he want?" a woman asked from the living room.

"I forgot your name," Mary said.

"Mills."

"Mills," Mary said. "I don't know what he wants."

As soon as he heard the woman's voice something happened to George. It would not be extravagant to say that he was thrilled. It was quite inexplicable. He could not have told you anything about her from its sound, not what she looked like, not her age. Nothing. Unless it was something of his sudden antic.i.p.atory sense of his place in her life. It didn't make sense. It was crazy. It was not love at first sight-he hadn't seen her yet-it was not love at all. But something. Loyalty perhaps, some deep-pledged human patriotism.

"You'll have to go in," Mary said. "Mother's not going to come out here." And already, though he knew nothing about the child, he was preparing concessions, making allowances, giving dispensation to her absent, younger, more mature sister. His regard was loose, and he took impressions like a pilgrim, like a man at a reunion. He had spent much of his working life in other people's rooms. He knew the handholds of sofas and box springs, all the secret toeholds of furniture, but knew them as increments of size and weight, without a.s.sociations. Now he noticed the hallway's umbrella stand, two tightly furled black umbrellas, and had a profound sense of the Glazers' weather. He glimpsed their dining room out of the corner of his eye and guessed their appet.i.te.

He walked into the living room.

The child preceded him and went to the head of her mother's bed-Mrs. Glazer sat on the side of a rented hospital bed that took up much of the room-and fished a cookie from the rumpled sheets. She slouched against her mother with a type of sullen possessiveness. He might have been sympathetic to the girl's fawning panic, but he'd already guessed the woman's irritation and felt his precarious allegiance sway.

"I'll be with you in a moment," she said, and turned to her daughter, stroking and chastising her. "Mary dear," she said, "it isn't convenient for you to hang on me. And if you've hidden any more cookies in my sheets I wish you'd dig them up. Why don't you go play with your sister?"

"I'm on the door."

"Mr. Mills can get the door while he's here. I'll call you when he leaves."

"Can I make a milk shake?"

"Didn't you already have one today?"

"So did Milly."

"But Milly hasn't asked for a second. And aren't you supposed to be going out on your uncle's boat this afternoon?"

"Has he called? Has Has he?" he?"

"Oh, make make the d.a.m.n milk shake! Wait. I'm sorry, Mary. Of course you may have a milk shake. One scoop, remember. Perhaps Mills wants one too." the d.a.m.n milk shake! Wait. I'm sorry, Mary. Of course you may have a milk shake. One scoop, remember. Perhaps Mills wants one too."

"No ma'am. Thank you."

When they heard the blender Mrs. Glazer finally greeted him.

"Thank you for coming," she said. "I'm sorry I wasn't able to attend Mr. Mead's funeral."

"Oh that's all right."

"It's not all right. He was a lovely man. We were good friends. I was about to say that I couldn't attend your father-in-law's funeral because I was arranging my own. My bishop, Mr. McKelvey, was here that morning with Mr. Crane, my funeral director. We were going over the music I've chosen. I also gave Roger the names of my pallbearers, and dictated the letters I had him send them. Most of these people are extremely busy men. There's no guarantee any two of them will even be in town when the time comes, so I've put them on notice. I picked my casket out from photographs, and selected the clothes and shoes I'm to be buried in. Two costumes really, two pair of shoes. My nice tweed if it's chilly, my linen if it's mild. Well, I can't be absolutely sure of the season, can I? I sent the garments with Mr. Crane to be dry-cleaned, and the shoes to the dago to be resoled.

"Well, I would have been unable to attend Mr. Mead's funeral in any event. A woman in the position of making preparations for her own funeral may be excused certain obligations--though not, I trust, her sacred ones. You may tell Mrs. Mills that we prayed that morning for the repose of Mr. Mead's soul. McKelvey is a splendid pray-er, even when he does not know the princ.i.p.al, as, I pride myself, I am. Crane didn't know what to make of it all, but I put in sufficient allusions to Mr. Mead's connections with water and shipping to make him think he had missed out on a handsome commission. G.o.d so loves a good joke, I think. The poor dear loves His laugh.

"Well," she said, "you must think it strange for someone to take on so about the protocols of her own death, or arrange her funeral as if it were her debut."

"No."

"No? Good for you then. But you must forgive my mis...o...b..s. People not themselves under the Lord's protection frequently asperse the confidence of saints."

"I'm saved too."

"Well, maybe," Mrs. Glazer said, "but do you really think that because you've had your five or six seconds down by the riverside, or that your heart keeps time with the tambourine, you know the elegant dismay of G.o.d? Or perhaps Jesus spoke to you during a hangover or warned you of a speed trap. Please, Mills, G.o.d made the sky blue but He is not flamboyant. If I choose the music for my service it isn't because the Lord has a favorite tune but because I do. Anyway, organists play better when they know the dead are listening.

"Well. Let's climb down from this. For all my brave talk about obsequies it turns out that it's inconvenient for me to die just now. It isn't that I object to death. Indeed, I'm for it rather. But you saw yourself. There was a cookie in the deathbed. There will be crumbs in the winding sheet. Mary has accidents. She pees her bed and has nightmares. She weeps during recess and suddenly claims not to be able to see blackboards. She says she's forgotten the multiplication tables, and neither Sam nor I can get her to do her homework. Her periods started over a year ago but stopped when I became ill. In a girl her age her psychiatrist thinks it an hysterical pregnancy on a heroic scale. But there's nothing heroic about it. She's simply craven regarding the idea of my death. Nothing I or Sam or her relatives do to distract her distracts her. Several thousand dollars have already been spent on tutoring her pleasure, but how do you distract the distrait? Such grief would be flattering if it was not clearly so self-serving.

"But all that's beside the point. The point is that I may not die with Mary in such a state. It isn't that I'd have no peace or that my daughter's uneasiness would in the least mitigate Heaven's perfect terms, but that my death just now would destroy her. She could die herself. As she doesn't yet have the character for Heaven I can't let that happen.

"Do you see my situation? I need another year. It may even be that Mary is part of G.o.d's plan to fight my cancer.--Did you say something?"

"Why wouldn't wouldn't I be spared the ticket?" Mills grumbled. I be spared the ticket?" Mills grumbled.

"What?"

"On that highway, that speed trap. I'm elect as the next guy."

Mrs. Glazer looked at him a moment, then went on. "The doctors think I'm crazy," she said, "but as neither Paul nor the oncologist believes he can do anything for me and has given me up, I have their blessing. Sammy was more difficult. He secretly believes it beneath the dignity of a dean to have his doomed wife go l.u.s.ting after miracle cures or traffic with quacks. When he heard what I was thinking of he urged me to take the money and go to Lourdes instead. He is a Jew and at least believes in the efficacy of psychology. I am Christian and an ex-madwoman, and don't give a fart for psychology. I already already believe. How would it help to drag my piety to a shrine? believe. How would it help to drag my piety to a shrine?

"It's probably hopeless, but I mean to go to Mexico for Laetrile treatments and need someone to accompany me, to a.s.sist me. It is impossible that Sam come with me. He will have to stay with the children. This is what I will give you."

She named a figure which George thought was probably fair, within pennies of what he supposed people in her circ.u.mstances paid people in his. Allowing for inflation, it was probably pretty close to what Guillalume had given the first George Mills. It was certainly fair. It may even have been generous, and he saw that grace was not without its opportunities. But he had misgivings. The woman wasn't easy. Compared to her, Laglichio, who knocked down esteem as easily as George broke down a bed, was a thoughtful, magnanimous person. Whatever Laglichio did, Mills knew, was in the service of angles, bucks. There was nothing personal. She would stand on a thousand ceremonies. But what the h.e.l.l? It might work out. It might even be pleasant to be at last under the touchy guns of the fastidious. He was in his fifties, and though he was not a bad man-wasn't he saved? elect as the next guy?-he'd had practically nothing to do with morality. There was no call for it in his neighborhood, not much call for it generally. There were no lovely lives, Mills thought. The world was charming or it wasn't. He, everyone, paid lip service to righteousness, but only good order quaked their hearts. In Mills's experience no one shot first and asked questions afterward. First they asked questions.

And then he thought, get down, be low, be low.

"What's wrong with you?"

Mrs. Glazer looked at him, surprised. "I have cancer," she said. "I already told you."

"I figured it must be something like that. My wife's always examining herself for that stuff, but so far she come up empty-handed."

Mrs. Glazer stared at him. "Are you a fool?"

"I'm different."

"Indeed."

"Look, lady, your proposition sounds like it could be a really sweet deal, but all you told me so far is about your high hopes and funeral arrangements."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm trying to get an idea how sick you are. My kind can be pretty long on loyalty, but there's a foreign country involved here. That funeral you keep talking about is supposed to take place stateside, but what happens if you die down there? I don't speak Mexican. Maybe them other applicants do. They look foreign enough."

"Other applicants?"

"Parked outside. In that car." He pointed past the living room window and indicated the Chevrolet.

"Oh," she said, "Max and Ruth. They must have slept late. They're brother and sister. They live in their car. They're not applicants."

"For real? In their car? You let them park there?"

"Whoever is dean," Mrs. Glazer said. "They park in front of the dean's house. They're really quite harmless. They go to all the public lectures at the university. The concerts and poetry readings. They eat the cheese and crackers. They stuff cookies into their pockets and drink the wine. It's how they live."

Mills nodded. Squatters, he thought, poachers. The old planted immunities and small piecemeal favors. The poor's special charters and manumissions, their little license and acquittals, all law's exonerate laxity and stretched-point privilege. He had to make himself low.

"Yeah, well," he said, "they look like ordinary thieves to me, my way of thinking. I could run them off for you. No charge."

"You're very boorish, aren't you?"

"Nah," Mills said, "no. I'm pointing out possibilities. I'm looking for the fly in the ointment. That's how I operate. In a way I'm protecting you. You'd want someone tough, am I right? In this situation you'd need a guy who could set aside his delicate feelings, not someone who starts bleeding at the sight of puke. Lady, I eat eat puke! And not at no concerts, not at no poetry readings." puke! And not at no concerts, not at no poetry readings."

"Yes," Mrs. Glazer said, considering.

"Sure," Mills said.

"Yes," she said.