The Baby in the Icebox: And Other Short Fiction Read online

  Mr. Hinsch: It’s just like lynching a nigger. Some of them says you ought not to lynch him, account of maybe he ain’t the right nigger, but I always say if a nigger hadn’t ought to be lynched for one thing he ought to be lynched for something else he done, so it don’t pay to figure it down too close. It’s just the same way with Scotty. He might of got beaned some other time.

  Mr. Oyster: Or later on, maybe.

  Mr. Hinsch: Of course, I ain’t saying Scotty didn’t make a whole lot of trouble the way he talked. If Scotty could of kept his trap shut he would of been a hell of a sight better fellow.

  Mr. Oyster: Scotty had a-plenty to say all right. But in a way you might say he done a lot for the town.

  Mr. Hinsch: I say anybody that went to fires regular like Scotty done, why, he done a lot for the town, even if he did have a lot to say.

  Mr. Oyster: If it was only me, I would say pay the pension and glad to do it.

  Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. I would be the first one to vote for it.

  Mr. Oyster: The trouble is them goddam Water Witches.

  Mr. Hinsch: Them Water Witches sure would raise hell. And what makes it bad, them Water Witches is all from the upper end of town and they pay the taxes.

  Mr. Oyster: Them Semper Fidelises ain’t got no money.

  Mr. Hinsch: Most of them Semper Fidelises pays rent. It’s them Water Witches owns the property, or their people does.

  Mr. Oyster: They pay rent when they pay it. I swear to God, I don’t see how half of them boys get along.

  Mr. Hinsch: Now what I say, it ain’t nothing against them boys that they’re poor people, like of that. But when them people that pays taxes comes in here and puts up a holler, why you got to pay some attention to it.

  Mr. Oyster: They put up a holler all right. You could hear them a mile. They plumb wore me out.

  Mr. Matchett: There wasn’t no trouble about it, was there? What I mean, nobody didn’t drop no blackball against me, did they?

  Mr. Hinsch: Not a one.

  Mr. Oyster: I don’t believe I ever saw a application go through as quick as hisn, did you, Hinsch?

  Mr. Hinsch: Same as a greased pig.

  Mr. Matchett: You know what I would tell them Rotarys if they was to come along and ask me to get in it? I’d tell them to go plumb to hell. The Odd Fellows is good enough for me.

  Mr. Hinsch: I wouldn’t stay up late nights waiting for them to ask you to get in it. They wouldn’t have such a no-account piece of trash as you in it.

  Mr. Oyster: Oh, no! Them Rotarys is a sassiety order. A-setting around the lunch table, making speeches and trying to make out like they knowed what all the tools was for.

  Mr. Hinsch: They brung Jim Peasely a bowl of water to wash the fish smell offen his fingers and he drunk it.

  Mr. Oyster: Thought it was soup.

  Mr. Matchett: Don’t it beat all, the way them fellows does? I wouldn’t trade off one good order, like the Odd Fellows, for a dozen of them Rotarys.

  Mr. Oyster: It’s a wonder them Rotarys wouldn’t help finish what they started. But nobody ain’t heard a word out of them since this trouble started.

  Mr. Hinsch: Then there’s another way to look at it. If we listen to them Water Witches and don’t allow no pension, why, then we got all them Semper Fidelises saying Scotty got killed in line of duty, same as a soldier, and the town won’t do nothing for him.

  Mr. Oyster: Say, Hinsch. That there is what they said, ain’t it? “Same as a soldier.” That there gives me a idea.

  Mr. Hinsch: I hope to hell somebody’s got a idea. I ain’t.

  Mr. Oyster: Hinsch, next Tuesday come a week is Decoration Day. Well, why not us get up a resolution, what I mean a real fancy resolution, saying Scotty died in line of duty same as a soldier, and appropriate some money to put a wreaf on his grave Decoration Day, and then say all the firemen had ought to have a festival to raise some money for Scotty’s family. How’s that hit you?

  Mr. Hinsch: That ain’t so bad. How much is wreaves?

  Mr. Oyster: They put up as pretty a wreaf as you want to see for twenty-five dollars. The town can afford twenty-five dollars.

  Mr. Hinsch: Them Water Witches couldn’t hardly put up no squawk on twenty-five dollars. And that there would certainly help to satisfy them Semper Fidelises. They can make a whole lot of money on a festival, this time of year, if everybody gets out and works.

  Mr. Oyster: And then we could put in that the commissioners has looked up the law and found it ain’t legal for the town to pay out a pension for Scotty. That there would make it look like we wanted to pay out a pension, only we couldn’t.

  Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. And so far as that goes, they ain’t none of us don’t want to see something done for Scotty’s family.

  Mr. Oyster: You and me was just saying if it was only us, we would give a pension and glad to do it.

  Mr. Hinsch: And fact of the matter is, I ain’t no ways sure the commissioners is got power to pay out a pension. I ain’t said nothing about it, but if them Water Witches was to take it to court, I don’t believe it would stand up.

  Mr. Oyster: Why, Hinsch, it stands to reason it ain’t legal. Them is the things people never think about.

  Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. What makes me sick is this here no-account element, always kicking and putting up a holler, and you try to please them, and nothing ever suits them, and come to find out, they don’t know what they want.

  Mr. Oyster: And then another thing. We’ll put in that them Rotarys had ought to help out with the festival. They done raised so much hell, now let them do a little work.

  Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. Now le’s get this here resolution wrote up. This here has got to be a pretty good resolution, what I mean, not no regular resolution, but a fancy one, if it’s going to do the work. You write it.

  Mr. Oyster: Not me. I ain’t much on writing. You write it.

  Mr. Hinsch: All right.

  (He sighs, and slowly collects pen and paper. Presently he starts to write. Mr. Oyster lights a cigar and watches him. Mr. Matchett dreamily looks out the window.)

  Mr. Matchett (after a very long time, in the tempo of the intermezzo out of Cavalleria Rusticana): Boys…I tell you there ain’t nothing will do as much for a fellow…as a good fraternal order…. If I was a young fellow…first thing I would join…would be the Junior Order…then the Heptasophs…or maybe the Red Men…then…the Odd Fellows…. You can’t beat a good order…to help a young fellow along…. Take, for instance…if you was to land broke…in some town…them lodge brothers…wouldn’t never let you jump no freight…to get home…. I remember one time…over in Myersville…I lost forty-seven dollars…at a shell game…in the county fair…and when I got done…I didn’t have a damn nickel…to buy myself a hot dog with…and the Junior Order seen me through…. You can’t beat a good order…to help a young fellow…along….

  Mr. Hinsch: I got something wrote out here. But it seems to me it’s too damn long.

  Mr. Oyster: Why, hell, it ought to be long. That pleases a whole lot of people. Read it.

  Mr. Hinsch (in an impressive voice): “Whereas, in the wisdom of Almighty God—”

  Mr. Oyster: That’s the stuff.

  Mr. Hinsch: “—there has been taken from our midst one of our most valuable and beloved citizens, Winfield Scott Akers, snatched to his reward from the bosom of a sorrowing wife and five small children—”

  Mr. Oyster: Six.

  Mr. Hinsch: Did Scotty have another kid? Damn, I never knowed that. “—a sorrowing wife and six small children, but done his duty to the last, in the manner of a soldier on the field of battle—”

  Mr. Oyster: Them Semper Fidelises will eat that up.

  Mr. Hinsch: “—in order that precious property might be saved from the flames, and might of been, except for things not under human control—”

  Mr. Oyster: That kind of makes that goddam fight look better.

  Mr. Hinsch: “—and whereas public-spirited citizens has appeared be
fore the Board at a public hearing, whereof due notice was given three days in advance, according to law, and petitioned that the sorrowing family of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, be given a pension of thirty-five dollars a month—”

  Mr. Oyster: I would put in that we would of give it anyhow, only it was illegal.

  Mr. Hinsch: I got that in here “—and whereas the Board is fully of the same sentiment in regards to the matter, and believe the sorrowing family of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, is entitled to a pension, but regret to note, after looking up the charter, that the Board has not got power to grant same, unless amended—”

  Mr. Oyster: I would cross out that “unless amended.” We don’t want them Semper Fidelises trying to amend the charter. Things is bad enough like they are.

  Mr. Hinsch: That’s right “—therefore be it resolved, that the Board appropriates the sum of twenty-five dollars for a wreaf to be placed on the grave of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, May thirtieth, Decoration Day, account of him dying in line of duty, same as a soldier, and hereby calls on both fire companies to hold a parade and lay the said wreaf on the grave, and further recommends that a festival be held that night, to be assisted in by both fire companies and all fraternal orders and civic societies, and that the Rotary Club take charge of same and see it is put over right. And be it further resolved, that this resolution be spread on the minutes of the Board and a copy sent to the sorrowing family of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, and advertised in the press. Done under our hand and seal.” How’s that?

  Mr. Oyster: Seems to me we could get some more fancy stuff in it. Something like “borne aloft to his reward for his labors on this earth.” Only Scotty never labored none, if he could help it.

  Mr. Hinsch: I’m going to write the first part over again. I got some Odd Fellow resolutions home that has got some good stuff in them.

  Mr. Oyster: That’s right. Some of them Memorial Service resolutions would have a whole lot of that stuff in them.

  Mr. Hinsch: Well, that fixes it, don’t it? Damn, I sure thought they had us in a hole for a while. Now let them goddam Rotary buttinskis take off their coat and go to work.

  Mr. Oyster: That there’ll fix them.

  Mr. Matchett: Boys, did you ever stop to think what a real good fraternal order can do for a man?

  Theological Interlude

  Characters:

  Mr. Nation

  Mrs. Nation

  Mr. Barlow

  THE SCENE IS THE porch of “The Anchorage,” a boarding-house run by the Nations in a Christian summer resort in the state of Delaware. It is about nine o’clock of an evening in late spring. Few sounds relieve the loneliness, except the restless swash of waves on the nearby beach. In the gathering darkness Mr. Barlow has been peering around in an interested way, asking questions now and then about the things that meet his eye. He is Mrs. Nation’s brother, and apparently has not visited the locality in a long time. He gets only mechanical answers to his queries, both Mr. and Mrs. Nation seeming distracted. When it is quite dark, he knocks the ashes out of his pipe in a businesslike way, and puts it in his pocket.

  Mr. Barlow: Well, now, what’s this all about? ’Cause you two sure did pick a bad time to bring me all the way up here from Delmar, and I want to get to it. What I mean, I don’t want to spend no more time up here than I have to.

  Mr. Nation: I reckon Laura can tell you.

  Mrs. Nation: Tell him yourself. You sent for him.

  Mr. Nation: You’re the one has got the squawk. Go on and tell him.

  Mr. Barlow: Now, now, that ain’t no way to talk. Come on, Laura, let’s have it.

  Mrs. Nation: It’s about Eva.

  Mr. Barlow: Where’s she at? I been waiting for her, and I ain’t saw her.

  Mr. Nation: Never mind where she’s at. We’ll get to that part in a minute. She ain’t here, anyway.

  Mrs. Nation: Well, it all started with what happened last summer. You remember that?

  Mr. Barlow: I heard them talking about it at home, but I kinda forgot how it was. I reckon you better start at the beginning, so I can get it all straight.

  Mrs. Nation: She had the typhoid fever. She was took just this time a year ago.

  Mr. Barlow: Yeah, I remember that.

  Mr. Nation: She was took a little earlier than this. First part of May, and she was getting better around the middle of June.

  Mrs. Nation: She was getting better when the first boarders begin to come. Dr. Winship said all danger was past, and we was all set she should get well.

  Mr. Nation: Only we was kidding ourself.

  Mr. Barlow: How old is Eva now? I ain’t saw her in five or six years, I do believe.

  Mrs. Nation: Eva’s sixteen now. But she was only fifteen then.

  Mr. Barlow: Sixteen! Who could believe it! And last time I seen her she was a little bit of a thing.

  Mrs. Nation: So she was took sick again.

  Mr. Nation: Sudden.

  Mrs. Nation: Real sudden. Dr. Winship said maybe it was something she et, on account their stomach is always tender after typhoid fever.

  Mr. Barlow: Yep, I tell you, you got to watch them after typhoid fever.

  Mrs. Nation: But anyway, she looks at me one night and says “Ma!… Ma!” just like that, and I knowed she had a sinking spell. And lands sakes, I was legging it down the boardwalk to Dr. Winship’s office before I really knowed I was out the door!

  Mr. Nation: And me trying to raise him by telephone! I’ll never forget that night.

  Mrs. Nation: So when Dr. Winship got here she was white as a sheet and he didn’t hardly get his gripsack open before she up and died.

  Mr. Barlow: (vastly surprised): Hanh?

  Mr. Nation: Almost before you could say Jack Robinson.

  Mr. Barlow: Who? You mean Eva?

  Mrs. Nation: Yes, Eva.

  Mr. Barlow: Eva dead and I ain’t heared nothing about it?

  Mrs. Nation: Well of course she ain’t dead now, if that’s what you mean.

  Mr. Barlow: (staggered): Well…this beats me!

  Mr. Nation: There’s a-plenty more to it yet. Go on, Laura.

  Mrs. Nation: So when Dr. Winship listened to her heart and it didn’t beat no more—

  Mr. Nation: He pronounced her dead, don’t forget that. Official.

  Mrs. Nation: That’s right. When he pronounced her dead, then he left. And then Hal called up the undertaker, the one in Greenwood.

  Mr. Nation: I was blubbering same as a baby. I couldn’t hardly talk.

  Mrs. Nation: So then a young fellow what was one of the boarders, he come in the room.

  Mr. Nation: Mr. Travis. He was a doctor. Anyway, he went to the medical school.

  Mrs. Nation: He took a look at her, and then he shook Hal by the arm and sent him down the beach where they keep the pulmotor, what they use when somebody gets drowned.

  Mr. Nation: And I run. I hope my die I did.

  Mrs. Nation: And then Mr. Travis, he commence to work on her. He run up to his room and got a gripsack and when he come back I don’t think I hardly ever seen anybody work like he did.

  Mr. Nation: We never took no more offen Travis after that. We give him his board free.

  Mrs. Nation: And when Hal come back with the pulmotor he went to work on her with that too. And then he stuck a needle in her. And pretty soon she came to.

  Mr. Barlow: Gosh! I’m glad you come to that part at last!

  Mrs. Nation: So when the undertaker come she was setting up.

  Mr. Nation: That there finished me with undertakers. You know what that boy done? He got sore because she wasn’t dead no more. Can you beat that?

  Mrs. Nation: So then, after a couple of weeks, she begun to tell me about—

  Mr. Nation: You forgot something. You forgot them pieces in the papers.

  Mrs. Nation: Oh yes. You see we was so excited we forgot all about Dr. Winship. To call him up, I mean, and tell him about it. And before he we
nt to bed that night he wrote up the death certificate and dropped it in the mailbox and it come out in the papers she was dead. And maybe Eva weren’t sore! ’Cause some of them papers from Dover and Salisbury, they had it in about the funeral and how many flowers there was. And Eva, she said, she hear tell all her life you couldn’t believe nothing you seen in the papers, but that time they sure did have a crust.

  Mr. Barlow: It beats all how many things them fellows puts in the papers. Sometimes I wonder how they find time to make up all the stuff what they put in.

  Mrs. Nation: So then, after a couple weeks, she commences talking about the dream she had. And me, I don’t take stock in dreams, but one day I asked her what it was. And she said that night when she was took that way, she dreamed she been to Heaven, And still we didn’t pay no attention to it, until that night, when I happened to think about what she said, and I told Hal about it. And all of a sudden he seen the meaning of it. Or thought he did anyway.

  Mr. Nation: And you thought so, too. Ain’t no reason for you to talk so big all of a sudden.

  Mrs. Nation: There’s a-plenty reason. If it hadn’t been for you and your—

  Mr. Barlow: Now wait a minute, wait a minute! Just what was this meaning, Hal, what you seen? Or thought you seen anyway?

  Mr. Nation: Well…well…I kind of figured out…that she…that maybe she…really had been to Heaven.

  Mr. Barlow: Oh! How come you to figure that out?

  Mr. Nation: Well, we’ll get to that part in a minute. That ain’t all of it.

  Mrs. Nation: So we kind of told a few people about it, and they let on they wanted to hear about it too. So when company come—

  Mr. Nation: Yeah, when company come! Who was it all the time a-egging Eva on to tell the company about it? Who was a-saying “Get out your banjer now, Eva, and let the folks hear it?”

  Mr. Barlow: Her banjer? What the hell did she want with a banjer? Did she bring that back with her from Heaven?

  Mr. Nation: She can pick a banjer.

  Mrs. Nation: She picks a banjer to them pieces what she speaks in school. She puts the banjer on her knees and while she picks it she talks.