Бетти Смит - Maggie-Now

Denny had no part in this. He sat on a high stool and watched the pool games and watched the comings and goings of Sal and his men. It was like a show to him. He was fascinated by Sal with his expensive tight-fitting black overcoat and his cream-colored Borsalina hat and his two-hundred-dollar suits and ten-dollar ties and his long black Packard.

From time to time, Denny was approached and asked if he'd like to make an easy "ten." Sure, Denny would have been glad to make an easy ten, but not that way. He always said "No." Why? He was afraid of F ether Flynn.

Denny went to confession each week. He had been doing so since he was eight years old. It was as much a part of his life as eating dinner at noon and supper at six. He'd have to confess to Father Flynn. The priest would not violate the confessional but he might withhold absolution until Denny went to the police and confessed. It never occurred to Denny flat to go to confession or to falsify a confession.

Then he was afraid of his father. He always had a feeling that his father divas waiting. . waiting for him, Denny, to do something real bad so that he could beat him to death with his shillelagh.

So while he did nothing worse than sit in the poolroom, it got around in the neighborhood that he was in bad company and he was tarred, bad.

It was the common consensus of the neighborhood that Denny was headed straight for Sing Sing.

1 374

~ CHIC P T. E ~ Fl F T. Y- Fl V E An' DENNY'S boss, Ceppi, the greengrocer, always brought his lunch from home. But one day he left it home standing on the sideboard and never missed it until noon. He called Denny out from the back room where the boy was sorting tomatoes: the firm for salads and eating out of hand in one basket, and the soft ones for soup or stewing in another basket.

"Hey, Wal-yo," called the boss. "Go by Winer the butcher and buy me six slice' hard salami slice' thin like fishy paper only to Winer you say dingy because he's a Heinie."

Otto Winer, in white apron, white coat over a sweater and straw cuff protectors and wearing a straw hat as all butchers did, even in winter, had taken advantage of the noon lull in trade to eat his steaming hot dinner in the room adjoining his store.

The dinner, which he ate from a cake-mixing bowl, consisted of pigs' knuckles, spinach, noodles and sauerkraut, all of which had been simmering together in a covered iron pot since seven o'clock that morning. A t hand was a lump of Schwartzbrod, spread with butter, to be used to sop up the broth, or "bree," as he called it, when the solid food had been eaten. His beverage was a bottle of beer which he had brewed himself.

Since his wife's death some years back, he'd lived in and cooked in the little back room. His living was lush, but his equipment sparse. All he had was a one-plate gas stove, the covered iron pot, a coffeepot, a coffee mug, a drinking glass and a knife, fork and soup spoon.

He had a basic recipe with seven variations, one for each day of the week. Each morning' he put all the stuff in the pot, covered it with w ater, added salt a Id pepper and let it simmer all day long. At noon, he ate a bowlful with knife and fork because the meat was still in chunks.

For his mid-afternoon snack he used only a fork because the stuff had cooked to stew by that time. By supper, it had simmered down to I thick soup, which he ate with a spoon.

F3 s] After supper, everything, in the pot was fed to his cat.

The cat was a huge black one with a white face and a head like a codfish. The cat's name was Schweinefleisch.

Translated, it vaguely meant "Porgy." The only thing was that the cat wouldn't answer to the name Schweinefleisch in or out of translation. He answered only to the name of "Kitty."

The cat slept all day in the clean, empty window of the butcher shop against a backdrop of brown paper bags, each hung up by one corner, to make an overlapping diamond design: a standard butcher-shop window dressing. The big, fat, sleek cat in the window was a good ad J or the store. People thought it must be a very clean butcher shop. No rats or mice. People figured that the cat was big and fat from eating up all the rats and mice.

Schweinefleisch had never been known to chase a rat, much less eat one. He was too fastidious for that. He was fat and shiny and strong from all the melted bones and meat and vegetables that he ate, and from the "bree,' that the cat lapped up in lieu of milk.

As Winer ate today's dinner, he dreamed of tomorrow's.

He planned to put some chunks of veal in the pot, whole potatoes, whole onions, a couple of handfuls of uncut string beans, seasoning and half a gallon of buttermilk.

That would make a nice "bree," the buttermilk.

He lacked sugar in his diet. He didn't take sugar in his morning coffee. He liked his coffee thick and black and laced with chicory. Sometimes just before bedtime, he got a craving for something sweet. At such times, he poured himself a tumbler of pre-prohibition, thick, sweet port v.

ine. After downing that, he felt he was caught up on sweet stuff for life. Usually, he ate a sour pickle as an antidote.

But he was a good man, just the same.

Denny walked into the empty shop and saw Winer eating in the back room. "Hey, Otto," he yelled, "Ceppi the Boss wants six slices of hard salami sliced di72ny."

"For a penny profit," said Winer coldly, "I don't let my dinner stand."

"Aw, come on. Chop-choiJ! Chat means get the lead out in Chinese."

"Listen! Go by Blyfuss the butcher, for your worst."

"The boss said to get it here. I lave a heart. I'm only trying to make a living."

1 376 "D, Bzll?lme1~" muttered winter.

Denny wished he was still hanging out at the newsstand with the fellers. What an act he could put on. He rehearsed the lines.

"Ihe boss says to me, 'Iley, what'a mat'? Where's me,eats?' (Denny thought of IIOW he u ould make the dialect broad for comic effects.) " 'Get-a-me der salam'.!"

But there was no newsstand crowd now and the fellers in the poolroom would think he has ntits if he \`ent into a routine like that.

While he vitas mentally rehearsing, he jiggled his way in back of the meat counter. He looked at the meat-cutting block. He remembered coming to this s me store when he u as a little kid, the time Maggie-Now came h re to buy a leg of lamb for Claude's first dinner at: the house. He remembered vividly how he had been entranced with that meat block then.

Now he took his fill Of looking at it. I he hardwood WJS whitely clean and had a slight hollow like a big, shallow bowl. He ran his hand over the smooth wood and a thrill a shiver went down his spine. He fell in love with the block. He looked at the rack of sharp knives fastens d to one side of it. He had an impulse.

"Hey, Otto," he called, "mould you let me cut the salami for you? "

NONV, whether there was something in the timbre of Denny's voice, or Winer's conscience bothered him because he had been mde to a customer, or he felt generous because he was replete with good, sound food, he matle an answer ullich had a tremendous effect on Denny's life.

He said: "Go 'head! "

"Where's the salami? ' "Is in icebox."

The icebox was a small rooll1 lighted by a small barred window high in the wall. TNVO huge blocks of ice stood on the sawdustcovered floor. Denny looked around reverently like an art connoisseur in an art museum.

The focus of interest was a large, cleaned, split hot, crucified from a rack by a hook i ~1 each front foot.

There w as also a quarter of beef hanging up and legs of ham and legs of veal. Also there was something he had never seen before. It looked like a rubber washboard.