Part Three-4

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    Mick turned sideways in the seat so <u>..</u>that she could cross her legs. There was a run iog. It had started while she was walking to work and she had spit on it Then later the run had gone farther and she had stuck a little piece of chewing-gum on the end. But even that didnt help. Now she would have to go home and sew. It was hard to know what she could do about stogs. She wore them out so fast Unless she was the kind of on girl that would wear cotton stogs.

    She oughtnt to have e in here. The bottoms of her shoes were  worn out. She ought to have saved the twenty ts toward a new half-sole. Because if she kept on standing on a shoe with a hole in it what would happen? A blister would e on her foot. And she would have to pick it with a burnt needle. She would have to stay home from work and be fired.

    And then what would happen？

    Here you are, said Mister Brannon. But I never heard of such a bination before.’

    He put the sundae and the beer oable. She preteo  her fingernails because if she noticd him he would start talking. He didnt have this grudge against her any more, so he must have fotten about the pack of gum. Now he always wao talk to her. But she wao be quiet and by herself. The sundae was O.K., covered all over with chocolate

    and nuts and cherries. And the beer was relaxing. The beer had a ter taste after the ice cream and it made her drunk. <bdi></bdi>o music beer was best.

    But now no music was in her mind. That was a funny thing. It was like she was shut out from the inside room. Sometimes a quick little tune would e and go—but she never went into the inside room with music like she used to do. It was like she was too tense. Or maybe because it was like the store took all her energy and time. Wool-worths wasnt the same as school.

    When she used to e home from school she felt good and was ready to start w on the music. But now she was always tired. At home she just ate supper and slept and then ate breakfast a off to the stain. A song she had started in her private notebook two months before was still not finished. And she wao stay in the inside room but she didnt know how. It was like the inside room was locked somewhere away from her. A very hard thing to uand.

    Mick pushed her broken front tooth with her thumb. But she did have Mister Singers radio. All the installments hadnt been paid and she took on the responsibility. It was good to have something that had beloo him. And maybe one of these days she might be able to set aside a little for a sed-hand piano. Say two bucks a week. And she would anybody touch this private piano but her —only she might teach Gee little pieces. She wouldkeep it in the ba and play on it every night. And all day Sunday. But then suppose some week she couldnt make a payment. So then would they e to take it away like the little red bicycle? And suppose like she wouldhem.

    Suppose she hid the piano uhe house. Or else she would meet them at the front door. And fight. She would knock down both the two men so they would have shiners and broke noses and would be passed out on the hall floor.

    Mick frowned and rubbed her fist hard across her forehead.

    That was the way things were. It was like she was mad all the time. Not how a kid gets mad quick so that soon it is all over—but in another way. Only there was nothing to be mad at.

    Uhe store. But the store hadnt asked her to take the job.

    So there was nothing to be mad at. It was like she was

    cheated. Only nobody had cheated her. So there was nobody to take it out on. However, just the same she had that feeling.

    Cheated.

    But maybe it would be true about the piano and turn out O.K.

    Maybe she would get a ce soon. Else what the hell good had it all been—the way she felt about musid the plans she had made in the inside room? It had to be some good if anything made sense. And it was too and it was too and it was too and it was too. It was some good.

    All right！

    O.K！

    Some good.

    Night/LL was serene. As Biff dried his fad hands a breeze tihe glass pendants of the little Japanese pagoda oable. He had just awakened from a nap and had smoked his night cigar. He thought of Blount and wondered if by now he had traveled far. A bottle of Agua Florida was ohroom shelf aouched the stopper to his temples. He whistled an old song, and as he desded the narrow stairs the tu a broken echo behind him. Louis was supposed to be on duty behind the ter.

    But he had soldiered on the job and the place was deserted.

    The front door stood open to the empty street. The clo the oio seventeen minutes before midnight. The radio was on and there was talk about the crisis Hitler had cooked up over Danzig. He went back to the kit and found Louis asleep in a chair. The boy had taken off his shoes and unbuttoned his trousers. His head drooped on his chest. A lo spot on his shirt showed that he had been sleeping a good while. His arms hung straight down at his sides and the wonder was that he did not fall forward on his face. He slept soundly and there was no use to wake him. The night would be a quiet one.

    Biff tiptoed across the kit to a shelf which held a basket of tea olive and two water pitchers full of zinnias. He carried the flowers up to the front of the restaurant and removed the cellophane-ed platters of the last special from the display window. He was sick of food. A window of fresh

    summer flowers—that would be good. His eyes were closed as he imagined how it could be arranged. A foundation of the tea olive strewhe bottom, cool and green. The red pottery tub filled with the brilliant zinnias. Nothing more. He began te the window carefully. Among the flowers there was a freak plant, a zinnia with six broals and two red. He examihis curio and laid it aside to save. Then the window was finished aood ireet tard his handiwork. The awkward stems of the flowers had beeo just the right degree of restful looseness. The electric lights detracted, but when the sun rose the display would show at its best advantage. Dht artistic.

    The black, starlit sky seemed close to the earth. He strolled along the sidewalk, pausing oo kno e peel into the gutter with the side of his foot. At the far end of the  block two men, small from the distand motionless, stood arm in arm together. No one else could be seen. His place was the only store on all the street with an open door and lights inside.

    And why? What was the reason for keeping the place open all through the night when every other cafe iown was closed? He was often asked that question and could never speak the answer out in words. Not money.Sometimes a party would e for beer and scrambled eggs and spend five or ten dollars. But that was rare. Mostly they came o a time and ordered little and stayed long. And on some nights, between the hours of twelve and five ocloot a er would eher<dfn>..</dfn>e was no profit in it—that lain.

    But he would never close up for the night—not as long as he stayed in the business. Night was the time. There were those he would never have seen otherwise. A few came regularly several times a week. Others had e into the plaly once, had drunk a Coca-Cola, and never returned.

    Biff folded his arms across his chest and walked more slowly.

    Ihe arc of the street light h<tt></tt>is shadow showed angular and black. The peaceful silence of the night settled in him.

    These were the hours for rest aation. Maybe that was why he stayed downstairs and did not sleep. With a last quick

    glance he sed the empty street a inside.

    The crisis voice still talked on the radio. The fans on the ceiling made a soothing whirl. From the kit came the sound of Louis sn. He thought suddenly of poor Willie and decided to send him a quart of whiskey sometime soon.

    He turo the crossword puzzle in the neer. There icture of a woman to identify in the ter. He reized her and wrote the name—Mona Lisa—across the first spaces. Number one down was a word fgar, beginning with m and ters long. Mendit. Two horizontal was some word meaning to remove afar off. A six-letter word beginning with e. Elapse? He sourial binations of letters aloud. Eloign. But he had lost ihere were puzzles enough without this kind. He folded and put away the paper. He would e back to it later.

    He examihe zinnia he had inteo save. As he held it in the palm of his hand to the light the flower was not such a curious spe after all. Not worth saving. He plucked the soft, bright petals and the last one came out on love. But who? Who would he be loving now? No one person. Anybody det who came in out of the street to sit for an hour and have a drink. But no one persoHE HEART IS A LONELY HtTNTERhad known his loves and they were over. Alice, Madeline and Gyp. Finished. Leaving him either better or worse. Which? However you looked at it.

    And Mick. The one who in the last months had lived sely in his heart. Was that love doh too? Yes. It was finished. Early in the evenings Mick came in for a cold drink or a sundae. She had grown older. Her rough and childish ways were almost gone. And ihere was something ladylike and delicate about her that was hard to point out. The earrings, the dangle of her bracelets, and the new way she crossed her legs and pulled the hem of her skirt down past her knees. He watched her a only a sort of gentleness. In him the old feeling was gone. For a year this love had blossomed strangely. He had questio a huimes and found no answer. And now, as a summer flower shatters iember, it was fihere was no one.

    Biff tapped his h his forefinger. A fn voice was now speaking over the radio. He could not decide for certaiher the voice was German, French, or Spanish. But it sounded like doom. It gave him the jitters to listen to it. Wheur off the silence was deep and unbroken. He felt the night outside. Loneliness gripped him so that his breath quied. It was far too late to call Lucile oelephone and speak to Baby. Nor could he expect a er to e this hour. He went to the door and looked up and dowreet. All was empty and dark.

    Louis! he called. Are you awake, Louis?’

    No answer. He put his elbows on the ter and held his head in his hands. He moved his dark bearded jaw from side to side and slowly his forehead lowered in a frown.

    The riddle. The question that had taken root in him and would not let him rest. The puzzle of Singer and the rest of them.

    More than a year had gone by si had started. More than a year since Blount had hung around the pla his first long drunk ahe mute for the first time. Since Mick had begun to follow him in and out. And now for a month Singer had been dead and buried. And the riddle was still in him, so that he could not be tranquil.There was something not natural about it all—something like an ugly joke. Whehought of it he felt uneasy and in some unknown way afraid.

    He had managed about the funeral. They had left all that to him. Singers affairs were in a mess. There were installments due ohing he owned and the beneficiary of his life insurance was deceased. There was just enough to bury him.

    The funeral was at noon. The sun burned down on them with savage heat as they stood around the open dank grave. The flowers curled and turned brown in the sun. Mick cried so hard that she choked herself and her father had to beat her on the back. Blount scowled down at the grave with his fist to his mouth. The towns Negro doctor, who was somehow related to poor Willie, stood on the edge of the crowd and moao himself. And there were strangers nobody had ever seen or heard of befod knows where they came from or why

    they were there.

    The silen the room was deep as the night itself. Biff stood transfixed, lost in his meditations. Then suddenly he felt a quiing in him. His heart turned and he leaned his back against the ter for support. For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valor.

    Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through eime. And of those who labor and of those who—one word—love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Betweewo worlds he was suspended. He saw that he was looking at his own fa the ter glass before him. Sweat glistened on his temples and his face was torted. One eye ened wider thaher. The left eye delved narrowly into the past while the right gazed wide and affrighted into a future of blaess, error, and ruin. And he was suspended between radiand darkness. Between bitter irony and faith. Sharply he turned away.

    Louis! he called. Louis! Louis!’

    Again there was no answer. But, mod, was he a sensible man or was he not? And how could this terror throttle him his when he didnt even know what caused it? And would he just stand here like a jittery ninny or would he pull himself together and be reasonable? Forafter all was he a sensible man or was he not? Biff wet his handkerchief beh the water tap and patted his drawn, tense face. Somehow he remembered that the awning had not yet been raised. As he went to the door his walk gaieadiness. And when at last he was inside again he posed himself soberly to await the m sun.

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