David Goodis - The Blonde on the Street Corner

George and Ken walked into the living room.

Ralph stood by the table, watching Dippy turn the pages on the telephone book. Dippy was having trouble finding the number. He ran his finger down more names.

“This telephone book is very poor,” he said. “There’s no system to it. Everything should have a system. That’s the way I work when I put in an oil burner. I work with a system. I’m an engineer. That’s what I really am. I’m a system engineer. Don’t call me a plain ordinary oil burner man. I’m a system engineer.” He concentrated deeply on the telephone book and ran his finger down the names and kept turning pages and saying, “The trouble with this telephone book is that it has no system. I can tell that because I’m a system engineer. What is this? I’m going to call up the telephone company and tell them how to make a telephone book that has a system.”

Upstairs Dippy’s mother said, “You dirty rotten fat slob you. You dirty bum.”

“You know what you can do,” Lenore said.

“Yes, I know what I can do,” the old woman said. “And I know what you’d like me to do. You’d like me to drop dead. Here and now.”

“You catch on fast, dearie,” Lenore said.

“All right, I’ll die for you. Soon I’ll die. I’ll shrivel up and they’ll put me in a coffin. They’ll nail up the coffin and they’ll put me in the earth. They’ll put me down deep in the mud with the worms. You’ll like that.”

“I’ll be tickled,” Lenore said.

“With the worms in the mud,” Mrs Wilkin said. “Deep down there. But I’ll get out. I’ll come back. I’ll come back and I’ll come into your room at night. I’ll stand beside your bed. I’ll reach down—”

“Don’t look at me like that! God damn you, you witch! That’s what you are, a witch—”

Something crashed against a wall. George and Ken ran up the steps and down the hall and into the front room. Mrs Wilkin and Lenore were wrestling on the floor. Mrs Wilkin was on top. She had one hand pressed on Lenore’s throat and her other hand was a fist and she was punching Lenore in the face. Lenore was screaming and trying to bring up her knee to kick Mrs Wilkin in the groin. And she was reaching up with her fingernails and raking her nails down Mrs Wilkin’s face. A broken vase lay on the floor. George and Ken rushed forward and pulled the women apart. Just as they got Mrs Wilkin away, Lenore pistoned her left foot out and kicked the old woman in the breast. The old woman gasped and then gurgled and sagged. Ken had hold of Lenore and she was trying to twist away from him to get at Mrs Wilkin. He had to grab her tight around the middle and she was twisting and writhing and screaming, cursing and spitting. She leaned her head down fast and bit Ken on the wrist. He let out a yell and his hand snapped away. Lenore twisted from him and lunged at Mrs Wilkin, who sagged in Ken’s arms.

“Get her away!” Ken yelled.

George reached out and grabbed Lenore by her thick blond hair. He pulled hard and she screeched and whirled and kicked at him and tried to reach his face with her fingernails.

“You better cut that out,” George said.

Lenore screeched again and came closer to George and speared her fingernails. One of the fingernails ripped at George’s cheek. He stepped back and put a hand to his cheek and it came away bloody. He stared at the blood on his hand. Lenore leaped at him again, spearing with her fingernails. George’s hand closed to a fist and he flicked it out and it cracked into Lenore’s chin and she sailed across the room and fell over a chair and landed on her back. Her feet were up in the air and her dress was up and she was falling all over herself trying to rise. Finally she plopped down and rolled over on her face and started to sob.

George had a puzzled look on his face. He said, “I didn’t want to hit her.”

Mrs Wilkin, sagging in Ken’s arms, looked at Lenore and smiled contentedly.

Ken said, “We gotta help Mrs Wilkin.”

“I’m all right,” the old woman said.

George looked at her. “Are you sure?”

“I’m all right. You can go downstairs now. I’ll be all right.” She put her hands to her breast and pain ran over her face. She walked to the door and there she turned. Again she looked at Lenore and again she smiled. Lenore was still sobbing on the floor. The old woman turned and walked from the room. She walked down the hall, to her own room, and she closed the door.

George and Ken looked at each other.

“Jesus Christ Almighty,” George said.

They walked to the head of the stairs. In the front room Lenore had stopped sobbing. She had picked herself off the floor and now she stood in front of the dresser and fixed her hair. George and Ken stood looking at her. Then they heard sounds coming from the old woman’s room. Moans.

“Maybe we ought to get a doctor,” Ken whispered.

“No,” George said. “She’s not in pain. Listen.”

They listened to the moans of despair coming from the old woman’s room. They looked at the closed door and then they turned and slowly walked downstairs. They sat down and Ken took out a pack of cigarettes. They sat smoking and looking at the wall on the opposite side of the room.

The breakfast-room door was closed. Dippy had closed it so he should not be annoyed by the carryings-on from upstairs.

Ralph scarcely heard the noise. He leaned against the side of the breakfast table and gazed through the window. He saw the grey wetness on the grey back-porches of the houses across the alley and above that the grey sky.

Dippy ran his finger along the names and said, “This telephone book has no system.” He turned and looked at Ralph. He looked at the closed telephone book. He started to open it. He closed it again. He looked at Ralph and he said, “Do you want her address?”

“What?”

“Her address — do you want it?”

“Whose address? What are you talking about?”

“The girl.”

“What girl?” Ralph said.

Dippy said, “The girl from last night. The girl who was sitting there alone in the corner.”

“Why should I want her address?” Ralph said.

“I just thought you might want it,” Dippy said. “I saw you looking at her. She was looking at you. I thought you might want her address. I asked Agnes. She told me that the girl lived seven houses down the street.”

Ralph looked at Dippy, whose eyes were blank. For a few seconds Ralph said nothing. Then he muttered, “What made you think I would want her address?”

“I don’t know,” Dippy said. He picked up the telephone book once more. He opened it and began turning pages. He touched a forefinger to the tip of his tongue and ran one finger down the names in the pages. He said, “The trouble with these telephone books is that they have no system at all.”

Ralph was in his room upstairs, looking at the sheet of paper, the scribbling, the crossed-out words and the words that remained.

He hummed the tune and the words fitted in, flowing. These were the right words. No other words could fit the tune. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket and went downstairs.

Ewie was saying, “That Mayhew. He thinks he’s smart. Today — you know what he did?”

Mr Creel tried to sink back into his newspaper. Ralph said, “You’re always talking about this guy Mayhew.”

“Mind your own business.”

“All right.”

“You haven’t any room to talk — about anybody or anything.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Well, I would. You keep your ideas to yourself. If I was a no-good bum, at least I wouldn’t go around criticizing other people. You don’t know Mayhew. You don’t know what I have to put up with. I work like a slave. But I couldn’t talk to you about work. You don’t know what the word means. You’re a lazy bum, a dirty lazy rotten good-for-nothing bum.”