Эд Макбейн - Running From Legs and Other Stories

“I’d be happy to do it for you,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Put up the antenna, take care of the installation.”

“Well, thanks,” I said, “but I think...”

“I know how,” Herbie said.

“Well, I’m sure you do, but...”

“I mean, in case you didn’t think I knew how.”

“I just wouldn’t want to impose on your time, Herbie.”

“Be no imposition at all. I’d be happy to do it.”

I was trying to figure how I could possibly tell Herbie I would prefer paying for a professional job, even if it meant paying more than I would have to pay him for the installation, when he suddenly said, “I didn’t mean to charge you, you...”

“What?”

“All you’d have to do would be pay for the parts, that’s all. I’d be happy to put it up for the experience alone.”

“Well...”

Herbie smiled gently. “None of us have too much money to throw around, I guess.”

“I couldn’t let you do that,” I said.

“You’d be doing me a great favor,” Herbie answered.

So that Saturday I went up to the roof with Herbie to put up the television antenna. It took me about five minutes to realize I wasn’t needed at all, but I went on with the pretense of helping anyway, handing Herbie a tool every now and then, holding the antenna erect while he put the straps around the chimney, generally offering needless assistance. We’d been up there for about a half-hour when Jason and Norman joined us. They were both wearing old Navy foul-weather jackets, the wind whipping their hair into their eyes.

“Well, now, that’s a pretty good job, Herbie,” Jason said.

Herbie, tightening the wire straps around the chimney, smiled gently and said, “Thank you.”

“How long have you been going to that school of yours?” Norman asked.

“Oh, just two months.” Herbie shrugged apologetically. “This isn’t too hard to learn, you know.”

“Do you like doing it?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, I love it,” Herbie said.

Jason looked at Norman with a smile on his face and then turned to Herbie again. “Were you involved with electronics in the service?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” Herbie said without looking up. He was retightening each wire strap until I felt sure the chimney brick would crumble. “I was a small-arms instructor at Fort Dix.”

“That right?” Jason said, a curious lilt to his voice.

Herbie laughed. “I think I was taken by mistake. My eyes are terrible, you know.”

“No!” Jason said, in mock surprise. “Your eyes? I don’t believe it.”

I looked at Jason curiously because I suddenly realized he was riding Herbie, and I couldn’t see why, nor did I think it was very nice to ride a guy who was doing me a favor and saving me money. But Herbie didn’t catch the inflection of Jason’s voice. He went right on tightening the wire straps, and he laughed a little and said, “Oh, sure, I’ve been wearing these thick glasses ever since I was a kid. But, I don’t know, the doctor who examined me said I was okay, so they drafted me.” He shrugged. Cheerfully he added, “They used to call me Cockeye when I was a kid.”

“How’d you like the Army?” I asked.

“I thought I was going to be a hero,” Herbie said musingly. “Me, a hero. Wiping out German machine-gun nests, things like that, you know? Instead, the minute I got in, they took one look and realized just how blind I really was. They figured if they sent me over to fight, I’d be shooting at the wrong army all the time. So they made me an instructor.” He shrugged. “After a while I began to enjoy it. I like taking things apart and putting them together again.”

“Then television ought to be right up your alley,” Jason said.

“Sure,” Herbie agreed. He stepped back from the chimney and surveyed his work. “There, that ought to hold it. We get some pretty strong winds on this end of the island.”

He walked away from the chimney and began paying out a roll of narrow wire to the edge of the roof. He worked with an intense concentration, a faint smile flickering on his mouth, as if he were pleased to see that things he’d learned in theory were actually capable of being put into practice.

“So you never got to be a hero, huh, Herbie?” Norman said, and his voice carried the same peculiar mocking tone as Jason’s.

“I guess not,” Herbie said, smiling. He shrugged. “But it’s just a matter of coming to grips, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t what?” Norman said.

“All of it. All of life. Coming to grips, that’s all.” He shrugged. “When I was a kid, I used to cry in my pillow because they called me Cockeye. One night I threw my glasses on the floor and then stepped on them and broke them in a million pieces. Only that didn’t change anything. I was still cockeyed in the morning, only worse because I didn’t even have my glasses.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with being a hero,” Jason said.

“Well, some guys never get to be heroes. I’m not so sure it’s important.”

“It might be,” Jason said.

“You think so? I don’t know. I keep asking myself what does Nappanee, Indiana, really need? A hero or a television repairman?” He grinned. “I think they need a television repairman.”

“Maybe they need a hero, too,” Jason said, and it suddenly seemed to me he was taking this all very personally, though I couldn’t for the life of me see why.

“Maybe,” Herbie admitted. “Listen, I think it would be very nice to be a television repairman and a hero. All I’m saying is that I’m happy to be what I am.”

“Which is what, Herbie?”

Herbie looked up from the roll of wire, surprised, turning his face toward Jason. The glasses reflected the sky overhead, giving his eyes a curiously opaque look. “Why, me” he said. “That’s all. Me.” He cocked his head and continued to look at Jason in puzzlement. “Look, I’m going to be cockeyed for the rest of my life, there’s nothing going to change that. But I look at my kids’ faces, I look into their eyes, I say to myself, Thank God, you’ve got good clear eyes and can see for twenty miles.” He shrugged. “That’s all.”

“I think I’m missing your point, Herbie,” Jason said.

“I’m not trying to make any point,” Herbie said amiably. “I’m only saying that part of living is sooner or later you come to grips. You look around you and decide what’s important, that’s all. It’s important to me that my kids have good eyes. That’s more important to me than all the German machine-gun nests in the world.” He walked to the edge of the roof and looked over. “Let’s go down and hook this thing up, okay?” he said.

Jason hesitated a moment, glanced at Norman, and then smiled. “Herbie,” he said slowly and evenly, “the tenants in the building are having a party on New Year’s Eve. It’ll be fun. Would you and Shirley like to come?”

Herbie turned from the edge of the roof. The sky was still reflected in his thick glasses, and the smile that covered his face was curiously eyeless.

“We’d love to,” he said softly. “Thank you very much.”

I suppose the party began to go wrong while it was still in its planning stages, though none of us seemed to recognize it at the time. We were all living on very tight budgets, and whereas we wanted to have our party, we didn’t want to have it at the expense of going hungry for the next month. It was decided almost immediately that everyone would bring his own bottle and that the party fund would provide setups. There was no disagreement on this point because it meant that each guest could bring and consume as much liquor as he desired without putting undue financial stress on the light drinkers in the building. Joan and I had hardly progressed beyond the two-drinks-an-evening stage of our social development, so we naturally were all for such an arrangement.