Mary and the Giant Read online

  Backing down the steps she said: “Dave isn’t home, is he? It doesn’t matter; I just wanted to find out.”

  “Aren’t you coming in? Just the old folks, Mary. Look—how about ice cream and cake, and we can chat?”

  “We haven’t seen you in so long,” Mrs. Gordon added.

  “Good-bye,” Mary Anne said. Dear, she thought, how wonderfully my new egg dicer works. You must take it when you and David set up housekeeping. Any date yet? Have some more ice cream.

  “Dave’s at the Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting,” Arnold said, emerging on the porch. “How’ve you been, Mary? How’s the folks?”

  “Fine,” she said, closing the gate after her. “If he wants me I’m at the Wren. He’ll know.”

  Hands in the pockets of her coat, she started walking in the direction of the Lazy Wren.

  The bar was smoky with the confusion of drinking people. She pushed among the tables, past the individuals clustered around the bandstand, and to the piano.

  At the piano was Paul Nitz, the intermission pianist. Slumped over, he gazed off into space, a lean, shaggy-blond young man with a dead cigarette between his lips, his long fingers tapping at the keys. Lost in his trance, he smiled up at the girl.

  “I thought I heard,” he murmured, “Buddy Bolden say.” Into the texture of his music he wove a hint of the old Dixie tune. The thread, elaborated and diminished, was lost in the dominant theme: the bop tune “Sleep.”

  Assembled at the piano were a very few admirers, listening to Nitz ramble. Eyes half-shut, he nodded to one of them; the listener’s face responded, and the two men nodded sagely together.

  “Yes,” Nitz said, “I thought I heard him as clearly as I see you now. News for you, Mary?”

  “What?” she said, leaning against the piano.

  “Nose is running.”

  “It’s cold outside,” she said, brushing her nose with the edge of her hand. “Is he going to sing, soon?”

  “Cold,” Nitz echoed. He ceased playing and, from around the piano, his few admirers drifted off. The real group waited at the bandstand, and they were more patient. “You don’t care,” he said to the girl. “You won’t be here. Minors. The world’s full of minors. Do you care if I’m playing? Do you come and listen to me?”

  “Sure, Paul,” she said, liking him.

  “I’m a hole. I’m a faintly audible hole.”

  “That’s right,” she said, sitting down on the bench beside him. “And sometimes you aren’t even audible.”

  “I’m a musical silence. Between moments of greatness.”

  She felt a little calmer, and looked around the bar, measuring the people, listening. “Good group tonight.”

  Nitz passed her the remains of his unlit reefer. “You want this? Take it; be delinquent. Go to hell in a bucket.”

  She dropped the cigarette to the floor. “I want to ask your advice.” Since she was here, anyhow.

  Getting to his feet, Nitz said: “Not now. I have to go to the bathroom.” He started unsteadily off. “I’ll be back.”

  Now she sat alone, picking without enthusiasm at the keys of the piano and wishing Paul would return. He was, at least, a benign presence; she could consult him because he made no demands on her. Withdrawn into his private obsessions, he ambled between the Wren and his one-room apartment, reading Western novels and constructing bop tunes on his piano.

  “Where’s your pal?” he said, plodding back and settling himself beside her. “That kid, the one with the clothes.”

  “Gordon. At the Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting.”

  “Did you know that I was once a member of the First Baptist Church of Chickalah, Arkansas?”

  Mary Anne was not interested in the past; burrowing in her purse she produced the ad she had cut from the Leader. “Look,” she said, pushing it to Nitz. “What do you think?”

  He examined the ad at great length and then returned it to her. “I already have a job.”

  “Not you. Me.” Restlessly, she put the ad away and closed her purse. It was, of course, the new record shop on Pine Street; she had noticed the remodeling. But she couldn’t go there until tomorrow, and the strain was wearing her down.

  “I was a member in good standing,” Nitz said. “Then I turned against God. It happened all of a sudden; one day I was saved and then—” He shrugged fatalistically. “Suddenly I was moved to get up and denounce Jesus. It was the strangest thing. Four other church members followed me to the altar. For a while I traveled around Arkansas converting people away from religion. I used to follow those Billy Sunday caravans. I was sort of a Blue-Monday Nitz.”

  “I’m going over there,” Mary Anne said. “Tomorrow morning, before anybody else does. They’ll have to call, but I know where it is. I’d be good on a job like that.”

  “Sure,” Nitz agreed.

  “I’d have a chance to talk to people…instead of sitting in an office typing letters. A record store’s a nice place; something’s always going on. Something’s always happening.”

  “It’s lucky for you,” Nitz said, “that Eaton stepped out.” Taft Eaton was the owner of the Wren.

  “I’m not afraid of him.” A Negro was crossing the room, and she sat suddenly very upright on the piano bench. And she forgot Nitz beside her, because there he was.

  He was a large man, with blue-black skin, very shiny, and—she imagined—very smooth. He stooped, a slump of his muscular body; that was an unbending of his personality, and she, watching him, could feel it flowing across and reaching her even where she sat. His hair glowed oilily, thick, rippled; important hair, elaborately attended to. He nodded to several couples; he inclined his head toward the people waiting at the bandstand, and then he passed on, massive in his dignity.

  “There he is,” Nitz said.

  She nodded.

  “That’s Carleton B. Tweany,” Nitz said. “He sings.”

  “He’s big,” she said, and watched fixedly. “Jesus,” she said. “Look at him.” It made her ache to see him, to imagine him. “He could lift a truck.”

  It had been a week, now; she had first spotted him on the sixth, the day his stand at the Wren opened. He had, they said, come down from the East Bay, from a club in El Cerrito. In this interval she had measured him, gauged him, absorbed from a distance as much as possible.

  “Still want to meet him?” Nitz asked.

  “Yes,” she said, and shuddered.

  “You’re sure hopped tonight.”

  She poked Nitz with her elbow, urgently. “Ask him if he’ll come over. Come on—please.”

  He was approaching the piano. He identified Nitz, and then his great dark eyes took in the sight of her; she felt him noticing her and becoming aware of her. Again she shuddered, as if she were rising through cold water. She closed her eyes for an instant—and when she looked again he was gone. He had started on, his hand around his drink.

  “Hey,” Nitz said, without conviction. “Sit.”

  Tweany halted. “I got to go make a phone call.”

  “One second, man.”

  “No, I got to go call.” There was weary importance in his voice. “You know I have matters on my mind.”

  To Mary Anne, Nitz said: “Golf with the President.”

  She started to her feet, resting the palms of her hands on the piano top, leaning forward. “Sit down.”

  He contemplated her. “Problems,” he said, and at last found an empty chair at a nearby table; dragging it over with one scoop of his hand, he sat beside her. She settled slowly back, aware of his closeness, aware, in a kind of controlled hunger, that he had stopped because of her. So the coming here had not been wasted, after all. She had got him; for a little, at least.

  “What problems?” Nitz inquired.

  The magnitude of Tweany’s preoccupation increased. “I’m on the third floor. The hot water heater’s up there, the one for the whole building.” Studying his manicured nails, he said, “The bottom rusted through and sprang a leak. It’s leaking water
down on the gas jets and on my floor.” Indignation entered his voice. “It’ll ruin my furnishings.”

  “Did you call the landlady?”

  “Naturally.” Tweany scowled. “A plumber was supposed to show up. The usual runaround.” He lapsed into moody silence.

  “Her name’s Mary Anne Reynolds,” Nitz said, indicating the girl.

  “How do you do, Miss Reynolds,” Tweany said, with a formal nod.

  Mary Anne said, “Your singing is real cool.”

  The man’s dark eyebrows moved. “Oh? Thank you.”

  “I come here every chance I get.”

  “Thank you. Yes, I believe I’ve noticed you. Several nights, in fact.” Tweany stirred. “I have to go phone. I can’t have my sofa ruined.”

  “Imported Tasmanian mohair,” Nitz murmured. “The extinct, primitive, fuzzy-haired mo.”

  Tweany was on his feet. “Glad to have met you, Miss Reynolds. I hope I’ll see you again.” He departed in the direction of the phone booth.

  “The green fuzzy-haired mo,” Nitz added.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mary Anne demanded, annoyed by Nitz’s singsong of dissent. “I read about a hot-water heater that exploded and killed a whole bunch of children.”

  “You read that in an ad, a Prudential ad. Seven danger signs of cancer. Why didn’t I insure my roof?” Nitz yawned. “Use aluminum pipe…deters garden pests.”

  Mary Anne looked after Tweany, but she could no longer see him; the haze had swallowed him up. She wondered how it felt to know somebody like him, to have such a big man nearby.

  “You’re wrong,” Nitz said.

  She started. “What?”

  “About him. I can tell the way you’re looking…there you go again. Another plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “Always. You in your coat, and your hands in your pockets. Standing around somewhere, with that worried, plotting look on your face. Waiting for somebody to show. What’s the trouble, Mary? You’re smart enough; you can take care of yourself. You don’t need brave Sir Noodlehead to protect you.”

  “He’s got poise,” she said. She was still watching; he was bound to reappear. “I respect that. Poise and bearing.”

  “What’s your father like?”

  She shrugged. “None of your business.”

  “My father,” Nitz said, “used to sing me good-night songs.”

  “So,” she said. “Fine.”

  “They do that,” Nitz murmured. “Mum, mum, mum,” he trailed off sleepily. “Oh, I see my coffin comin’, mamo. Whump, whoo-whoo.” He tapped on the piano with a coin. “Now play it. Yah.”

  Mary Anne wondered how Nitz could be sleepy when there were so many things to worry about. Nitz seemed somehow to expect the world to take care of itself. She envied him. She wished, suddenly, that she could let go for a moment, relax long enough to have comforting illusions.

  In her mind appeared the remnant of a long-ago rhythm, a terrifying lullaby. She had never forgotten it.

  …If I should die before I wake…

  “Don’t you believe in God?” she said to Nitz.

  He opened one eye. “I believe in everything. In God, in the United States, in power steering.”

  “You’re not much help.”

  In the corner of the bar Carleton Tweany had reappeared. He was chatting with groups of patrons; tolerant, superior, he moved from table to table.

  “Pay no attention to him,” Nitz mumbled. “He’ll go away.”

  The shape of Carleton Tweany neared, and again she tensed herself. Nitz radiated disapproval, but she was far above caring; she had made up her mind. Now, in a quick single motion, she was on her feet. “Mr. Tweany,” she said, and apparently her feeling was there in her voice, because he paused.

  “Yes, Miss Mary Anne?” he said.

  She was suddenly nervous. “How’s—your hot water heater?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did the landlady say? Didn’t you call her?”

  “I called, yes. But I couldn’t get hold of her.”

  Breathlessly, afraid he would start on, she demanded: “Well, what are you going to do?”

  The man’s lips twitched, and, gradually, his eyes filmed behind shadow. Turning to Paul Nitz, who was still slumped at the piano bench, he said: “Is she always like this?”

  “Most of the time. Mary lives in a universe of leaky pots.”

  She flushed. “I’m thinking of the people downstairs,” she said defensively.

  “What people?” Tweany asked.

  “You’re on the top floor, aren’t you?” She hadn’t lost him yet, but he was beginning to slide away. “It’ll drip down on them—it’ll ruin their walls and ceilings.”

  Tweany started off. “They can sue the landlady,” he said, dismissing the subject.

  “How long before you’re through singing?” Mary Anne asked, hurrying after him.

  “Two hours.” He grinned with superiority.

  “Two hours! Maybe they’ll be dead by then.” She had a vision of chaos; erupting geysers of water, splintered boards, and, behind everything else, the sound of fire. “You better go over right now. You can sing later. It isn’t fair to those other people. Maybe there’re children downstairs. Are there?”

  Tweany’s amusement faded to exasperation; it did not please him to be bossed. “Thank you for Your interest.”

  “Come on.” She had decided.

  He gaped at her with dense vacantness. “What’s that, Miss Mary Anne?”

  “Come on!” She caught hold of his sleeve and tugged him toward the door. “Where’s your car?”

  Tweany was indignant. “I’m perfectly capable of handling the situation.”

  “In the lot? Is your car in the lot?”

  “I don’t have a car,” he admitted sulkily; his cream and yellow Buick convertible had recently been repossessed.

  “How far is it?”

  “Not far. Three or four blocks.”

  “We’ll walk.” She was determined to keep within physical reach of him; and, in this urgency, she had swallowed his problem whole.

  “You’re coming along?” he was asking.

  “Certainly.” She started off.

  Tweany reluctantly followed. “Your interest is not necessary.” He seemed to expand behind her, to become even taller and more upright. He was a troubled commonwealth. He was an empire plagued at its borders. But she had stirred him into action; she had, in her need of him, prodded him into awareness of her.

  Holding the street door open, she said: “Stop wasting time. We’ll be back; you can sing later.”

  4

  • • • • • • • •

  The two of them trudged through the closed-up slum business district, neither having much to say. Presently dark stores gave way to houses and apartment buildings. The houses were old.

  “This is the colored section,” Tweany said.

  Mary Anne nodded. Her emotion had waned; now she felt tired.

  “I live in the colored section,” Tweany said.

  “No kidding.”

  He glanced curiously at her. “Don’t you ever take it easy, Miss Mary Anne?”

  “I’ll take it easy,” she said. “When I’m good and ready.”

  He laughed loudly. “I never met anybody like you.” Now that they had left the Wren some of his formality was eroding. An expansiveness replaced it; roaming along the deserted evening side walk, Tweany began to enjoy himself.

  “You love music, don’t you?” he said.

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  “There has been some conflict between I and Nitz. He prefers to play the usual line of popular jazz. As you’ve probably noticed, it’s my desire to bring in a more refined musical form.”

  Mary Anne listened without really hearing the man’s words. His deep voice reassured her; it dissipated some of her uneasiness, and that was enough.

  The presence of Negroes had always lulled her. In the Negro world there seemed
more warmth, and less of the struggle she had known at home. She had always been able to talk to Negroes; they were like herself. They, too, were on the outside, in a separate world of their own.

  “You can’t go a lot of places either,” she said aloud.

  “What’s that?”

  “But you have so much ability. How does it feel to be able to sing? I wish I could do something like that.” She remembered the ad tucked away in her purse, and her restlessness increased. “Did you study somewhere? Some school?”

  “At the conservatory,” Tweany said. “My ability was noted at an early age.”

  “Did you belong to the Baptist Church, too?”

  Tweany laughed tolerantly. “No, of course not.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Here in California. I’ve made California my permanent home. California is a rich state…it has boundless possibilities.” To certify his point, he indicated his coat sleeve. “This suit was tailored for me personally. Designed and fitted by an expert firm in Los Angeles.” His fingers strolled over his silk hand-painted necktie. “Clothes are important.”

  “Why?”

  “People can tell you have taste. Clothes are the first thing people notice. As a woman you must be aware of that.”

  “I suppose so.” But she didn’t care; clothes, to her, were a civic duty interwoven with cleanliness and posture.

  “It’s a nice evening,” Tweany observed. He had got around to the street side of her, a gesture of gentlemanly alertness. “We have excellent weather here in California.”

  “Have you been in other states?”

  “Of course.”

  Mary Anne said: “I wish I could travel.”

  “When you’ve seen the various big cities you’ll know one fundamental thing. They’re all alike.”

  She accepted his words, but the longing was untouched. “I’d like to go somewhere, to some better place.” That was the most she could summon; the idea was no clearer. “What would be a better place? Name a real nice place, where the people are nice.”

  “New York has its charms.”

  “Are people nice, there?”

  “New York has some of the finest museums and opera houses in the world. The people are cultured.”