Crackpot, page 27
“I spend all that time building paradise, who’s going to live in it? All this free love they’re passing around, I’ll be too tired to enjoy it after a hard day’s work.”
“We fight and die for them and all they can do is grumble. My God, you’re beginning to sound like my old lady.”
“Comes the revolution maybe your old lady won’t have to work so hard and won’t be tired,” Hoda suggested. “You’ll stay home in your own paradise.”
“With my wife? For this I manned the barricades and stormed the City Hall? Long live the ongoing revolution! Karl Marx was right. The dialectic is the thing.” All it meant was that after the revolution he wasn’t going to put all his eggs in one basket either, if he could help it.
Mr. Polonick was for a different kind of revolution, more of a close-legged kind of affair, with everybody drinking from his own private cup, like Lenin said. Hoda didn’t follow the intricacies of argument of some of the lectures she attended, but she could see from the different characters and the different attitudes of the different revolutionaries why it was going to have to be a perpetual revolution, whether it was a peaceful one, as Mr. Polonick and Hoda herself would prefer, or, as some more fiery comrades advocated, a radical, violent affair. She, for one, couldn’t see any way out of it. Take, for instance, in her own work, a man like Mr. Polonick; she could feel how deeply he was the way he was, and feeling it she could understand it. How much difference would the revolution really make to him personally, in his private life? If, for instance, he were to make himself come to Hoda one evening with even a buck-fifty in his hand she would be so embarrassed she would almost die, simply from knowing how he felt. And she didn’t see how, after the revolution, it would be any different for him if he came, as would be his right, without any money at all. Even if he got his own private cup after the revolution, how would he feel and how would he make her feel? He’d probably still rather stay thirsty, and go on dreaming revolutions. That didn’t mean that the revolution wasn’t going to be good in other ways of course, but just that it wouldn’t fix everything all at once. For sure Hoda could see that this revolution was going to be a very very long-drawn-out affair, but ever since she had struck her first blow she had figured well, so what? At least it was time somebody got started on it. As the comrades said, there was a lot to be done! Even if Hoda hadn’t thought that the revolution was a pretty good idea all in all, she would have gone to the meetings and helped anyway, partly because of Mr. Polonick. She felt a certain responsibility for him. He was not a very practical kind of person. There was nothing wrong with his ideas except that often they didn’t match how things really worked. He always looked straight ahead and never saw anything coming at him from left or right. Hoda was a lot younger but she knew that the world was somehow too complicated for him, maybe a little like it was for Daddy, only in a different way. But she couldn’t explain it to him because it would hurt him, and he was getting hurt all the time anyway. It was odd about a beautiful soul like Mr. Polonick; though he was aching all the time, not only for himself but for the whole world, he could hurt you too, without even feeling the pain he was inflicting, like when he planted that barb about maybe Daddy knowing all the time what she was doing. He didn’t have to say it. Even if it were true, and how would he know anyway, did he have to say it, and complicate for her the familiar dearness of her daddy’s face with hints of the vast, unfamiliar world that lay behind it? Mr. Polonick was right, all of her daddy’s familiarly threaded, expected, redundant flow of words that made her so impatient sometimes might really be intended to conceal rather than reveal. Conceal what? From whom?
Oh, Polonick didn’t know what he was talking about. Why couldn’t he just relax and learn to get some fun out of life? He couldn’t seem to bring himself to stop worrying about the world for even a minute, for fear, maybe, that he would lose count of all that was wrong and have to start counting all over again. Sometimes Hoda was invited to a party at the home of one of the comrades, and everybody had fun. It wasn’t as though they were forgetting the revolution or anything, just enjoying life in the meantime; but Mr. Polonick wouldn’t dance or kibitz. He just sat there smiling nervously and looking on, and the first chance he got he would try to corner somebody and start an ardent conversation about glum things that really counted.
Daddy, on the other hand, could really enjoy himself, just like a little kid. When Seraphina and her pimp came driving up that time in his elegant automobile and took them for a ride, her daddy climbed into the rumble seat like a young boy, with hardly any help from Hoda, even though he’d never even seen such a thing and had only heard it described, and couldn’t even see where he was climbing. He felt very quickly all over and around with his hands and settled himself, chuckling away and looking about him for all the world as though he could see, while Hoda described what was happening when Seraphina’s pimp was cranking up the engine.
Not long after she had passed the jail-bait age, Seraphina had done exactly as she had said she would. She had taken her jars of makeup and her big blue bottle of eau de cologne, and her set of lacy underwear, which she kept hidden away from her brothers and sisters and sometimes used to bring to Hoda’s to change into when she was going on the prowl, and had gone to work for this guy she had met downtown who was really big business, and now she was a regular woman-about-town, and even had her turn to be taken around in his automobile. Hoda had a suspicion that she herself was being taken for the joyride because Seraphina’s business agent, “Call me less Les, more more, hotcha baby” wanted to look her over, since for a couple of years now Serry had been urging her to come on up and Hoda just hadn’t bothered. He looked a little surprised when Hoda said Daddy would love to come too, and threw a quick frown at Seraphina, but then he said all right, he supposed Daddy could sit in the rumble. Hoda figured what the hell, let Daddy have some fun too, and she climbed in back with him, though it was a tight squeeze, and Les muttered something about the rear axle. They might not get a chance to go for a ride in an automobile again for a long time. It was nice of Seraphina. And it was fun, too. Daddy sat beaming at the breezes that whipped his face as the car went rushing along. Pretty soon he unclasped his fingers from the side grip and held them up in the air for Hoda to see that he wasn’t even holding on, and she laughed too and enjoyed the way the wind was blowing about her thick mop of sandy hair. Seraphina was really doing all right for herself, in some ways. Hoda knew that the guy knocked her around occasionally, which she herself would not have been able to tolerate, but Seraphina, though she complained, stayed with him because she was convinced she really had the whip hand, though he might sometimes do the whipping.
“I told him, ‘You lay a hand on me once too often and I know where to go! I’ll go live in a house!” And she did know, too. Seraphina really knew her way around. “When I tell him that, he treats me with so much respect, it’s unnatural!” Seraphina giggled. “You have to know how to handle them, Hoda.”
Les drove them all the way out to the Municipal Park, where he drew up at the pavilion and got out, and Hoda and Seraphina got out too, while Daddy waited in the rumble, and Les linked his arms in both of the girls,’ and led them into the high-raftered building and bought them both ice cream cones like a regular sport, and an extra one for Hoda to take back to her daddy. While they were on their way back to the car he suggested that since she and Serry were such good friends, maybe Hoda would like to come in and do business with them. Serry was doing all right and he had plenty more contracts he could cut her in on. But Hoda, busy licking the drippings and barely catching the piled-high ice cream as it settled and overflowed the cones, explained between licks that she had her daddy to look after, and didn’t want to tie herself up with anyone else at the moment. Then, laughing, she rushed ahead to get his ice cream to her father while there was still some left.
“She’s too fat anyway,” Les muttered sourly to Seraphina. But there was an unmistakable vitality about her, that should go if you sold her right. Later on they parked in front of the house for a few moments, where all the nosey neighbours, Hoda hoped, were looking, and when Daddy had gone in, Les offered her a modified “commission basis” kind of arrangement in case sometimes a special job came up for someone her type. Not unflattered, Hoda said “maybe sometime, if it pays enough,” because after all it had been pretty nice of him to drive them around and buy them ice cream when they didn’t even expect it. And it wouldn’t hurt to keep the door open, though she knew that as long as she could manage it she’d rather freelance. It was good for a guy like that to think she was doing all right and could afford to be independent. Then if he did occasionally offer her a job it might be worthwhile.
Even if they hadn’t had so much fun, she and Daddy, riding in the rumble and eating ice cream, the drive would have been worthwhile for one thing alone. On the way back, Hoda suddenly yelled out loud, “Broom Shop, Institute for the Blind! Daddy, did you see that?” And for the rest of the trip they speculated about the place, where Hoda was sure she had seen handicraft for sale in the windows. A couple of days later Hoda, with an armful of some of Daddy’s nicest bags and baskets found her way, after a lengthy streetcar ride, back to the broom shop, and from there to an office where she and a lady discussed her father’s case and the lady commented on the beauty of the baskets and said of course she would put them up for sale. She even thanked Hoda for coming forward and bringing Danile to her attention. Then she asked if they needed any help, she and Daddy, and Hoda found herself replying, with modest pride, that they didn’t really need anything at all, that she managed to bring in a little money at her job, and that it would be enough help for them if the Society would put some of Danile’s baskets on sale.
When she thought of it afterwards Hoda was surprised at the way she had waved aside the offer of assistance. There had scarcely been a moment since her mother died when they hadn’t needed help, and now it was offered finally, and just for the pleasure of making the gesture, she had refused it. Why hadn’t she at least waited to find out what they were willing to do? But she wasn’t sorry. Such a nice woman that was, so friendly and polite, Hoda simply had to stay equals with her.
Satisfying as the interview with the lady from the Blind Institute had been, it was even more gratifying to tell Daddy all about it afterwards. She did not even try to keep count of the exact number of times she repeated to him what the lady had said, especially the compliments that were paid his work. And each time she saw the struggle against too immodest an expression of pleasure in his face, which finally gave way to a great wide beam which seemed to illuminate the room, as he repeated in a slightly tremulous voice, “So the government likes my work?”
It was inevitable that they should speak of Uncle, now, and celebrate that day, years before, when they had rejected his offer to put them in institutions, and he had left them with the direst prophecies. How far away that was. Now they heard of Uncle mainly through the Yiddish papers, where they read, and Danile didn’t begrudge it him, though Hoda sometimes grumbled, of his success as a figure in the social and philanthropic world; for as the years went by he had become a member of the board of this and an organizer of that. After each new triumph of his, something would arrive for them too, so that Hoda could pretty accurately prophesy when she saw his picture staring out at her from the paper, with that “yes, it’s me” expression all those pictures wore, or read an item which referred to him, that within the next few days she would find some household bill had already been paid, perhaps the rent for a few months, or an unexpected order of groceries would be delivered to their door. Conscience money, Hoda called it, but Danile said no, Uncle simply wanted his family to share his happy moments. Hoda argued that it was a kind of blackmail, to force people to wish you well, even when you had been mean to them. Danile said that since he wished Uncle well anyway, with or without bribes, Uncle’s gifts became, willy nilly, gestures of pure generosity, which someday he still hoped to be able to reciprocate, though he hoped Uncle would never have need of his help.
And Uncle’s gifts did come in handy. Sometimes, in fact, when things were really tight, she would leaf through the Yiddish paper and say to herself, “What’s the matter with Uncle? If he doesn’t do something to get himself in the paper soon we’re really in trouble. Come on Uncle, attend a banquet, get on a committee. For crying out loud, you want us to starve this winter? You’ll be sorry when that gets in the paper!” Of course she wouldn’t speak so in front of Danile, who became upset when she was too rude about the old man. Hoda knew that it bothered Danile that Uncle had made no attempt to reestablish personal contact. Whenever the subject came up he always repeated the same saying, “My mother always used to say, ‘sometimes it’s better to be friends from a distance.’”
For her daddy’s sake more than for her own, since she could find her own friends, it rankled with Hoda. Someday she too would like to be in a position to reciprocate Uncle’s gifts, for her own satisfaction, to let him know they were evens and equals and quits, if he didn’t want to be real friends.
Danile wished that he could somehow let Uncle Nate know about their small triumph. In spite of their differences he was sure that Uncle would be pleased that he didn’t have to be ashamed of his poor relations. They weren’t such shnorrers after all, as the government could tell him.
“Why don’t we just send him a present?” said Hoda, without thinking of what she was saying, though she knew the minute the words had formed that it was a brilliant idea. Why not do exactly what Uncle did when some happy development made him feel expansive? Hoda selected from among the finest and largest of the baskets she had in stock, what they finally agreed was the best, and though Danile found some small faults to deplore, she overrode his suggestion that he set to work right now and create a special basket which would be the ultimate in basketry, for Uncle’s gift. She wrapped it very carefully. On a white piece of cardboard she printed in her fine print,
Dear Uncle Nate and Auntie Gusia,
My father and I would like you to have this gift. Daddy’s bags & baskets are now also prominently displayed at the Broom Shop of the National Institute for the Blind. We hope that you will use it and tear it in good health.
Hoda did not imagine that with this gesture they would achieve the longed-for parity, but it was a step in the desired direction, an announcement of intention. Let Uncle know.
While the enthusiasm was still on her, she set forth to deliver the gift. It took all the enthusiasm she could muster for the project, to provide the push which would carry Hoda within sight of Uncle’s house, for Uncle lived not far from the orphanage, within that shadowed area into which she had not dared to venture since her terrible night. Still she set out, and such is the peculiarity of the human imagination, that the instant she crossed some demarcation line of the mind, she felt as though the atmosphere in which she moved had changed entirely, and she was oppressed by a sensation of heaviness and a feeling of unreality. And yet she did not even have to catch a glimpse of the Children’s Home on her way to Uncle’s. When she was about a block away from Uncle’s house she found the messenger she wanted, for she had no intention of delivering their parcel like a little messenger girl herself, and frightening Auntie Gusia into thinking that maybe she wanted to be invited in. A little boy was dawdling along the walk, his schoolbag strapped over his shoulder.
“Hey kid,” Hoda called out to him, “little boy, you want to make two cents?”
The little fellow came forward, and the sane, familiar contact with another human, eagerly responding to her call, lifted her sense of oppression momentarily.
“You look like a smart kid,” she said. “I want you to deliver a parcel for me. It’s not heavy, see? It just looks big. I’ll point out the house, and you deliver it to the lady who answers the door. Don’t leave it on the steps; wait till they open the door. I’ll watch you from here. I’ll give you a penny now, and when you’re finished come back here and I’ll give you the other penny, okay?”
“I know how,” he said gruffly, shoving the penny deep in his pocket. He trotted off, with the parcel lightly floating in his arms and the first penny he had ever earned weighing down his pocket. Halfway to the house he lost the feel of the penny. He paused to jiggle his thigh against his pants. He stopped, gripped the basket for a precarious instant in one hand as the other snaked down to make sure the copper was still there.
Scratch your arse later, Hoda implored silently. Get a move on, kid, and let me get out of here. There was nothing to be afraid of she knew. But how do you argue with dread?
The child came racing back down the street for his other penny. “I know how deliveries work,” he said, trying to hold her attention.
“You’re a smart fellow. Next time I need a delivery boy I’ll call you,” said the fat lady, already half turned away. She threw a funny look down his street and moved very quickly, almost running, away.
“Tomorrow?” he called hopefully, but she didn’t hear. Pipick watched her. So that’s how things worked. You could just happen to be coming home late from school and a stranger saw that you were a smart boy and you got lucky, all of a sudden, just like that. Other times you could wish and wish and wish, all for nothing. She was going to call him again, and he’d look for her too, when he came home from school every day. He moved homeward, stopping every few steps to pull his coppers out of his pocket and examine them. Maybe she’d give him other things, too, all kinds of things. You could deliver things a lot faster if you had an automobile, like Mr. Limprig. He examined his grandfather’s face on the pennies. Our father who lives in heaven and our grandfather who lives in Windsor castle. Sometimes he thought it was his own special grandfather, really, but then they laughed and he knew it was just teasing. Relations and locations and belonging and how things worked were a perpetual puzzle to Pipick. Why did Mr. Limprig prefer to take the girls for car rides when they paid no attention and didn’t learn anything, no matter how far he drove, and how long they stayed away to charge up his battery? And then they wasted time getting sick so he had to stop for a long time to make them feel better like that, the way Shirley had showed him afterwards, behind the outbuildings.
