David Goodis - The Blonde on the Street Corner

“Who told you to run into them?” Silver said. “Who told you to make a disturbance?”

“Look at my pants,” Dippy said. “Look at my poor pants. Ice cream all over them. My pants are ruined. And my back — I think my back is broken.” He reached behind him and touched his spine and nodded emphatically.

“Don’t make with jokes,” said Silver.

“My back is broken,” said Dippy. “Some joke.”

“I can’t see your broken back,” Silver said, “but I can see three broken milk bottles in the street. You owe me fifteen cents.”

“Send me a bill,” Dippy said.

Silver shrugged. Then he said, “The least you can do is pick up that broken glass out of the street and put it on the pavement. All I need now is the paper carrier should come and get a flat tire.” He went back into his store.

Dippy picked up the pieces of glass, one by one, and put them on the pavement. He looked at the broken glass, and then he looked at his three friends, leaning against the brick wall. He looked at the cold grey sky, and the cold grey walls of the row-houses, and the thin streets, and the branches of thin trees that wavered in slow rhythm.

And Dippy yawned.

Ralph’s father worked in an ice plant. He was fifty years old. All his life he had worked with his hands. Now he was tired.

He had thin, straight-combed brown-and-grey hair and light brown eyes, wrinkled at the edges. On the left side of his face was a four-inch scar where a thirty-pound rectangle of ice had crashed into him after sliding off a shelf at the plant. He always wore a dark blue shirt to work and he always carried his lunch in a paper bag. He made sixty dollars a week. He smoked ten-cent cigarettes and he took his wife to the movies at least once a fortnight. They always went to a place that showed double features and gave out free dishes or silverware or something. Norman Creel liked Western movies. He also liked child stars. He was very fond of children.

He walked up the narrow street of row-houses. It was six in the evening. The street had a single lamp-post. The light cut through early winter darkness and flowed along the narrow pavement.

As he approached the light, Creel smiled. He always smiled at the light when he walked up this street after a day’s work. The light showed him his way home. It spread a rug of glowing silver across the cold cement, leading to the ninth house from the corner.

He walked up the silver carpet and up the five steps and put his key in the lock and pushed the door inward and he was home. He was tired and hungry and glad to be home, and—

“Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”

That was Evvie’s voice, from the kitchen.

“Shut your big mouth. I don’t have to stand for you talking to me like that.”

It was Adeline, the younger one. Evvie was twenty-three and Adeline was sixteen.

Evelyn was saying, “Mom, do you know what she did?”

Adeline shouted, “Mom, don’t listen to her! She’s a liar. Whatever she says she’s a liar.”

Mrs Creel was hollering, “Both of you shut up! Get out of the kitchen! No — wait — Adeline, I want you to run across the street to the American Store and buy a half pound of those chocolate-covered marshmallow cakes.”

“Mom, I don’t like those cakes. They taste like glue with sugar—”

“Shut up. They’re good cakes. Your father likes them.”

“I like Danish pastry” Evvie said.

“She likes Danish pastry,” Adeline sneered. “Downtown high society.”

“You mind your own business, Mouth,” Evelyn said.

“For God’s sake will you two shut up already?” Mrs Creel said.

“A half a pound, Mom?” Adeline yelled from the back steps.

“Yes, honey, a half a pound. Now hurry.”

Evelyn said, “Mom, honest to God, I’m starved to death. I worked so hard today I thought I’d die. And that dirty rotten louse of a Mayhew — he came over and bawled me out right in front of a whole crowd of customers—”

“My poor baby,” the mother said. “I’d like to tell that Mayhew a thing or two.”

“Honest, Mom, he’s terrible. You know, the conceited type. He thinks he’s somebody. He walks around like a general always looking for something to find fault with. So today he don’t like the way I’ve got the slips and panties arranged. And he comes over and talks in that sarcastic way he has. You know, not yelling exactly, but just digging, digging, with that soft, greasy voice he has, like a needle. And all the customers, the dirty slobs — standing there and taking it all in. And Mayhew having the time of his life — you know, because he has an audience, see? So he winds up with this — he says, ‘In the future, Miss Creel, please be more careful about the way you arrange your panties.’ And then he walks away. So one of the customers starts to laugh. And then another. And then the whole mob of them, the dirty, filthy, vulgar pigs, they were all laughing. And don’t think I didn’t know what they were laughing at. I know. I’m not as dumb as they think, those slobs. And I know Mayhew said that on purpose. Wise guy. I’ll wise guy him one of these days. One of these days he’ll make another crack like that and so help me, Mom, so help me, I’ll lean across the counter and smack him right across his fresh face. And then, if they fire me, then I’ll really let go. I’ll tell them a thing or two. And that Mayhew — that rat! Honestly, Mom, sometimes I get so mad I could cry!”

Norman Creel was in the living room, standing at the foot of the stairs, still wearing his overcoat. He was in the front page of the Bulletin , reading about a fistfight on the floor of Congress. He came to the line which read, “Continued on page four.” He told himself to remember about that, to turn to page four right after dinner. He threw his hat and coat on a chair and walked into the kitchen and said, “Hello, girls.”

His wife smiled at him, put her arms about him and kissed him. She was warm from cooking and he held her tightly, and pressed her warmth against him.

Evvie said, “Why, Pop, you old wolf, you!”

Mrs Creel laughed and stepped away so that Evvie could kiss her father.

Creel said, “My two pretty girls.”

His wife said, “And what about Addie?”

“That’s right — my three pretty girls.”

The front door opened and then slammed shut. An instant later there was a knocking. Then the door opened again, and slammed shut again. Addie came tramping through the house, followed by her brother.

Ralph was saying, “Did you have to slam the door in my face? You saw me coming up the steps.”

“You’re not a cripple. You can open the door for yourself.”

“That’s not the idea. It’s just consideration for other people, that’s all.”

“Oh, nuts.” Addie was in the kitchen, putting the bag of cakes on the table.

Ralph came into the kitchen. He said, “Hello, Pop.”

“Hello, son.”

The five of them were in the very small kitchen. Mrs Creel turned around to have a look at the soup. Her elbow jabbed into some dishes and she made a frantic grab and just about managed to save them. “Damn it!” she hollered. She put her hands on her hips and looked at everybody and said, “What is this, a convention or something? Come on, out of the kitchen everybody — except you, Evvie. I want to talk to you about those dollar ninety-eight hats you got at the store.”

Creel and his son and young daughter trooped through the small breakfast room, into the small living room. The living room had a sofa and two chairs and a small table next to the sofa and a radio. Addie turned on the radio.

The Guy Lombardo number ended and the announcer was talking about a sensational sale at some store. And then he was saying, “For Mary Constantino, for Lucille Demaree, Bobby, Sid, Joe, and the Gang, and Harold, Sissie, Jane, Dolly, and our old friend Josephine Cass — Cassbo — Cassabolicci — whew! Ha ha ha — don’t worry, Josephine, old girl, one of these days I’ll really learn how to pronounce your name — ha ha ha — and Fred, Mike and the boys from Olney — we play the Tommy Dorsey record of When You Awake ?”