Steel and other stories [SSC] Page 5

  Into an enormous room. Grey.

  Voices chattered. All alike.

  “It’s swell here,” said a voice. “It isn’t black as pitch.”

  “It isn’t cold as ice,” said another.

  The poet’s eyes snapped about in confused fury. He saw blurred forms, seated, standing, reclining. He backed into a gray wall.

  “It isn’t mean as sin,” a voice said.

  “It isn’t raining cats and dogs,” said another.

  “Avaunt.” The ancient lips framed automatically. “I say. . .”

  “Gee whiz, but it’s super dandy swell-elegant!” a voice cried happily.

  The poet sobbed. He ran. “Surcease,” he moaned. “Surcease.”

  “I’m in the plumbing game,” said a man running beside him.

  Iverson Lord gasped. He raced on, looking for escape.

  “It’s a rough game, the plumbing game,” said the man.

  A side hall. Iverson Lord plunged in frantically.

  He ran past another room. He saw people cavorting around a gray maypole.

  “By George!” they cried in ecstasy. “Great Guns! Holy Mackerel! Jiminy Cricket!”

  The scholar clapped gaunt hands over his ears. He hurled himself on, driven.

  Now, as he ran, there started in his ears a murmuring. A chorusing.

  “A Stitch In Time Saves Nine. Time And Tide Wait For No Man.” They chanted. “Early To Bed, Early To Rise. Too Many Cooks Spoil The Broth.”

  Iverson Lord cried out. “Gods of moulded symbol! Pity!”

  The chorus hallelujahed. “Oh Boy!” they sang. “Wow! Gee Whiz! Hot Stuff!” Their voices swelled into a mighty “Land O’ Goshen!”

  “Aaaaah!” howled the poet. He flung himself against a gray wall and clung there while the voices surrounded like melodic fog.

  “Oh, my God,” he rasped. “This is complete, this is unmitigated hell!”

  “YOU SAID IT!” paeaned the chorus of thousands. “AIN’T IT THE TRUTH! OH WELL, YOU CAN’T LIVE FOREVER! THAT’S THE WAY IT GOES! HERE TODAY AND GONE TOMORROW! THAT’S LIFE!”

  In four part harmony.

  <>

  ~ * ~

  THE WEDDING

  Then he told her they couldn’t be married on Thursday because that was the day the Devil married his own mother.

  They were at a cocktail party and she wasn’t sure what he’d said because the room was noisy and she was a little high.

  “What, darlin’?” she asked, leaning over to hear.

  He told her again in his serious straightforward manner. She straightened up and smiled.

  “Honest, you’re a card,” she said, and took a healthy sip from her Manhattan.

  Later, while he was driving her home, she started talking about the day they were going to get married.

  He said they’d have to change it: any day was all right except Thursday.

  “I don’t get you, darlin’.” She put her head on his unbroad and sloping shoulder.

  “Any day is all right except Thursday,” he repeated.

  She looked up, half the amusement dying hard. “All right hon,” she said. “A joke’s a joke.”

  “Who’s joking?” he inquired.

  She stared at him. “Darlin’, are you crazy?”

  He said, “No.”

  “But—you mean you want to change the date because . . . ?” She looked flabbergasted. Then she burst into a giggle and punched him on the arm. “You’re a card, Frank,” she said. “You had me goin’ for a minute.”

  His small mouth pushed together into an irked bow.

  “Dearest, I will not marry you on Thursday.”

  Her mouth fell open. She blinked. “My God, you’re serious.”

  “Perfectly,” he answered.

  “Yeah, but…” she began. She chewed her lower lip. “You’re crazy,” she said, “because . . .”

  “Look, is it so important?” he asked. “Why can’t it be another day?”

  “But you didn’t say anythin’ when we made the date,” she argued.

  “I didn’t realize it was to be a Thursday.”

  She tried hard to understand. She thought he must have a secret reason. B.O. Bad breath. Something important. “But we made the date already,” she offered weakly.

  “I’m sorry.” He was adamant. “Thursday is out.”

  She looked at him carefully. “Let’s get this straight, Frank. You won’t marry me on that Thursday?”

  “Not on any Thursday.”

  “Well, I’m trying to understand, darlin’. But I’m damned if I can.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  Her voice rose. “You’re bein’ childish!”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She slid away from him on the seat and glared out the window. “I’d like to know what you call it then.”

  She lowered the pitch of her voice to imitate his.

  “I won’t marry on Thursday because . . . because the Devil married his—grandmother or something.”

  “His mother,” he corrected.

  She snapped an irritated glance at him and clenched her fists.

  “Make it another day and we’ll forget the whole thing,” he suggested.

  “Oh sure. Sure” she said. “Forget the whole thing. Forget that my fiancé is afraid he’ll make the Devil mad if he marries me on a Thursday. That’s easy to forget.”

  “It’s nothing to get excited about, dearest.”

  She groaned. “Oh! If you aren’t the . . . the absolute limit.”

  She turned and looked at him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “How about Wednesday?” she asked.

  He was silent. Then he cleared his throat with embarrassment.

  “I—” he started, and then smiled awkwardly. “I forgot that, dear,” he said. “Not Wednesday either.”

  She felt dizzy. “Why?” she asked.

  “If we married on Wednesday, I’d be a cuckold.”

  She leaned forward to stare at him. “You’d be a what?” she asked in a shrill voice.

  “A cuckold. You’d be unfaithful.”

  Her face contorted in shock.

  “I—I,” she spluttered. “Oh, God, take me home! I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in the world!”

  He kept driving carefully. She couldn’t stand the silence.

  She glared at him accusingly. “And—and I suppose if we got married on a-a Sunday, you’d turn into a pumpkin!”

  “Sunday would be fine,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m so glad for you,” she snapped. “You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.”

  She turned away from him.

  “Maybe you just don’t want to many me,” she said. “Well, if you don’t, say so! Don’t give me all this crap about. . .”

  “I want to marry you. You know that. But it has to be the right way. For both our sakes.”

  She hadn’t intended to invite him in. But she was so used to his coming in that she forgot when they arrived at the house.

  “You want a drink?” she asked sullenly as they went into the living room.

  “No, thank you. I’d like to talk this thing over with you, sweetheart,” he said, pointing to the couch.

  She set down her chubby body stiffly. He took her hand.

  “Dearest, please try to understand,” he said.

  He slid an arm around her and stroked her shoulder. In another moment she melted. She looked into his face earnestly. “Darlin’,” she said, “I want to understand. But how can I?”

  He patted her shoulder. “Now listen, I just know certain things. And I believe that to marry on the wrong day would be fatal to our relationship.”

  “But. . . why?”

  He swallowed. “Because of consequences.”

  She didn’t say anything. She slid her arms around him and pressed close. He was too comfortable not to marry just because he wouldn’t marry on Thursday. Or Wednesday.

  She sighed. “All right, darlin’.
We’ll change it to Sunday. Will that make you happy?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That will make me happy.”

  ~ * ~

  Then one night he offered her father fifteen dollars to seal the bargain of their marriage.

  Mr. O’Shea looked up from his pipe with an inquiring smile.

  “Would you say that again?” he asked politely.

  Frank held out the money. “I wish to pay this as purchase money for your daughter.”

  “Purchase money?” asked Mr. O’Shea.

  “Yes, purchase.”

  “Who’s sellin’ her?” Mr. O’Shea inquired. “I’m givin’ her hand in marriage.”

  “I know that,” said Frank. “This is just symbolic.”

  “Put it in your hope chest,” said Mr. O’Shea. He went back to his paper.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you must accept it,” Frank insisted.

  Then she came downstairs.

  Mr. O’Shea looked at his daughter.

  “Tell your young man to stop kiddin’,” he said.

  She looked at Frank with a worried glance. “Aw, you’re not startin’ in again, Frank.”

  Frank explained it to both of them. He made it clear that he in no way regarded her as a mere cash purchase; that it was only the principle of the thing he wished to adhere to for both their sakes.

  “All you have to do is take the money,” he finished, “and everything will be all right.”

  She looked at her father. Her father looked at her.

  “Take it, father,” she sighed.

  Mr. O’Shea shrugged and took the money.

  “Four-nine-two,” sang Frank. “Three-five-seven . . . eight-one-six. Fifteen, fifteen and thrice on my breast I spit to guard me safe from fascinating charms.”

  “Frank!” she cried. “You got your shirt all wet!”

  ~ * ~

  Then he told her that, instead of throwing out her bouquet, she’d have to let all the men make a rush for her garter.

  She squinted at him. “Come on, Frank. This is goin’ too far.”

  He looked pained.

  “I’m only trying to make things right for us,” he said. “I don’t want anything to go wrong.”

  “But—good God, Frank!—haven’t you done enough? You got me to change the wedding day. You bought me for fifteen dollars and spit all over yourself in front of Daddy. You make me wear this awful itchy hair bracelet. Well, I stood for it all. But I’m gettin’ a little tired of it all. Enough’s enough.”

  Frank got sad. He stroked her hand and looked like Joan of Arc going up in flames.

  “I’m only trying to do what I think is best,” he said. “We are beset by a host of dangers. We must be wary of what we do or all is lost.’’

  She stared at him. “Frank, you do want to marry me, don’t you? This isn’t just a scheme to—?”

  He swept her into his arms and kissed her fervently.

  “Fulvia,” he said, “Dearest. I love you and I want to marry you. But we must do what is right.”

  Later Mr. O’Shea said, “He’s a jerk. Kick him out on his ear.”

  But she was rather chubby and she wasn’t very pretty and Frank was the only man who’d ever proposed to her.

  So she sighed and gave in. She talked it over with her mother and her father. She said that everything would be all right as soon as they got married. She said, “I’ll humor him until then, and then—whammo!”

  But she managed to talk him out of having the male wedding guests make a rush for her garter.

  “You don’t want me to get my neck broken, do you?” she asked.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Just throw them your stockings.”

  “Darlin’, let me throw my bouquet. Please?”

  He looked pensive.

  “All right,” he said. “But I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.”

  He got some salt and put it in the hot oven in her kitchen. After a while he looked in.

  “Now our tears are dry and we’re all right for a while,” he said.

  ~ * ~

  The wedding day arrived.

  Frank was up bright and early. He went to church and made sure all the windows were closed tight to keep the demons out. He told the pastor it was lucky it was February so the doors could be kept closed. He made it quite clear that no one was to be allowed to touch the doors during the ceremony.

  The pastor got mad when Frank fired his .38 up the chimney.

  “What in heaven’s name are you doing!” he asked.

  “I am just frightening off evil spirits,” said Frank.

  “Young man, there are no evil spirits in the First Calvary Episcopal Church!”

  Frank apologized. But, while the pastor was out in the lobby explaining the shot to a local policeman, Frank took some dishes out of his overcoat pocket, broke them and put the pieces under pew seats and in corners.

  Then he rushed downtown and bought twenty-five pounds of rice in case anyone ran out of it or forgot to bring it.

  Hurrying back to his betrothed’s house, he rang the bell.

  Mrs. O’Shea answered. Frank asked, “Where’s your daughter?”

  “You can’t see her now,” Mrs. O’Shea said.

  “I simply must,” Frank demanded. He rushed past Mrs. O’Shea and dashed up the stairs.

  He found his bride sitting on the bed in her petticoat polishing the shoes she was going to wear.

  She jumped up. “What’s the matter with you!” she cried.

  “Give me one of your shoes,” he gasped. “I almost forgot. It would have been doom if I’d forgotten.”

  He reached for a shoe. She drew back.

  “Get out of here!” she cried, pulling on her bathrobe.

  “Give me a shoe!”

  She said, “No. What am I supposed to wear? Galoshes?”

  “All right,” he said, plunged into her closet and came out with an old shoe.

  “I’ll take this,” he said and ran from the room.

  She remembered something and her wail followed him out. “You aren’t supposed to see me before we get married!”

  “That’s just a silly superstition!” he called back as he jumped down the staircase.

  In the kitchen he handed the shoe to Mr. O’Shea who was sipping coffee and smoking his pipe.

  “Give it to me,” said Frank.

  Mr. O’Shea said, “I’d like to.”

  Frank was oblivious. “Hand the shoe to me and say ‘I transfer authority,’ “ he said.

  Mr. O’Shea’s mouth fell open. He took the shoe and handed it back dumbly.

  “I transfer authority,” he said.

  Then he blinked. “Hey, wait!”

  But Frank was gone. He jumped back upstairs.

  “No!” she yelled as he ran into her room again. “Get the hell out of here!”

  He hit her on the head with the shoe. She howled. He swept her into his arms and kissed her violently.

  “My dearest wife,” he said and ran out.

  She burst into tears. “No, I’m not going to marry him!” She threw the polished shoes at the wall. “I don’t care if he’s the last man in the world. He’s awful!”

  After a while she picked up the shoes and polished them again.

  About then Frank was downtown making sure the caterer had used exactly the right ingredients in the cake. Then he bought Fulvia a paper hat to wear when she ran from the church to the sedan. He went to every second hand store in town and bought all the old shoes he could to use as a defense against malign spirits.

  By the time the wedding hour came he was exhausted.

  He sat in the church anteroom, panting, running over the list he’d made to make sure nothing had been forgotten.

  The organ started to play. And she came down the aisle with her father. Frank stood looking at her, still breathing quite heavily.