Anne Tyler - Morgan's Passing

Once, a few years back, Morgan had had a girl clerk named Marie. She was a very young, round-faced redhead who always wore a loose gray smock to protect her clothes from the dust. Morgan started pretending she wasp his wife. It wasn't that he found her' all that appealing; but he slowly built this scene in his mind where she and he were the owners of a small-town Ma-and-Pa hardware store. They'd been childhood sweethearts, maybe. Mentally, be aged her. He would have liked her to have white hair. He started wearing a wrinkled gray jacket and gray work trousers; he thought of himself as "Pa Hardware." The funny thing was, sometimes be could be looking right at her but daydreaming her from scratch, as if she weren't there. Then one afternoon be was standing on the ladder putting some shelves in order and she was banding him boxes of extension cords, and he happened to lean down and kiss her on the cheek. He said, "You look tired, Ma. Maybe you ought to take a little nap." The girl bad gasped but said nothing. The next day she didn't show up for work, and she never came again. Her gray smock still hung in the stockroom. Occasionally, when be passed it, Morgan felt sad all over again for the days when be bad been Pa Hardware. But now he had this. Butkins, this efficient, colorless young fellow already setting out a new display of Rubbermaid products in the — window. "Morning."' Morgan told him. He went on up to his office. He took off his parka, hung it on the coat tree, and sat down in the cracked leather swivel chair behind his desk. Supposedly, be would be dealing with the paperwork now-typing up orders, filing invoices. Instead be opened the center drawer and pulled out his bird-feeder plans. He was building the feeder for Bonny. Next Tuesday was their anniversary. They had been married for nineteen' years; good God. He unrolled the plans and studied them, running a nicotine-stained finger across the angles of various levels and compartments. The feeder hung by a post in which be would drill four suet boles-or peanut-butter holes, for Bonny claimed that suet caused cholesterol problems. Morgan smiled to himself. Bonny was a little crazy on the subject of birds, he thought. He, weighted the plans fiat with a stapler and a pack of drill bits, and went to find a good plank to begin on.

For most of the morning be sawed and sanded and hummed, occasionally pausing to push back his hat and wipe his face on his sleeve. His office stairs made a fine sawhorse. At the front of the store a trickle of' shoppers chose their single purchases: a mousetrap, a furnace filter, a can of roach spray. Morgan hummed the "W. P. A. Blues" and chiseled a new point on his pencil.

Then Butkins went to an early lunch, leaving Morgan in charge. Morgan had to rise and dust off his knees, regretfully, and wait on a man in coveralls who wanted to buy a Hide-a-Key. "What for?" Morgan asked. "Why spend good money on a little tin box? Do you see the price on this thing?"

"Well, but last week I locked the keys inside my car, don't you know, and I was thinking how maybe I could hide an extra key beneath the-"

"Look," said Morgan. "All you do is take a piece of dental floss, waxed. Surely you have dental floss. Thread your extra key on it, double it for strength, tie it to your radiator grille and let the key hang down inside. Simple! Costs you nothing."

"Well, but this here Hide-a-Key-"

"Are you not standing in the' presence of a man 'whose wife perpetually mislays his car keys for him?" Morgan asked.

The man glanced around him.

"Me, I mean. She loses all I own," Morgan said, "and I've never bad a Hide-a-Key in my life."

"Well, still," the man said doggedly, "I think I'll just go on ahead with this here."

"What is it?" Morgan asked. "You don't have dental floss? Never mind! I tell you what I'll do: you come back this same time tomorrow, I'll have a piece for you from home. Free, no charge. A gift. All right? I'll bring you in a yard or two."

"For Christ's sake," said the man, "will you let me buy one cruddy Hide-a-Key?" Morgan flung his bands up. "Of course!" be said. "Be my guest! Waste your money! Fill your life with junk!" He stabbed the cash-register keys. "A dollar twenty-nine," he said.

"It's my dollar twenty-nine, I'll waste it however I like," said the man, pressing the money into Morgan's palm. "Maniac."

"Junkie!" The man rushed off, clutching his Hide-a-Key. Morgan muttered to himself and slammed 'the cash register shut.

When Butkins came back, Morgan was free to go to lunch. He went to the No Jive Café; be liked their pickles. All the other customers were black, though, and they wouldn't talk to him. They seemed to spend their mealtimes passing tiny wads of money to the counterman, and then mumbling and looking off sideways under lowered lids. Meanwhile Morgan slouched over his plate and chewed happily on a pickle. It really was a wonderful pickle. The garlic was so strong it almost fizzed. But you only got one to a plate, alongside your sandwich. He'd asked time and time again for an extra, but they always said no; he'd have to order another hamburger that he didn't even want.

After he finished eating, he thought he'd take a walk. He had a regular pattern of places be liked to visit. He zipped his parka and set off. The day bad not warmed up much; the passers-by had pinched, teary faces. Morgan was glad of his beard. He tuned up his collar and held it close and proceeded almost at a run, squinting against the wind.

'First to Potter, the used-instrument dealer, but Potter had someone with him-a gawky, plain young woman 'trying out a violin. "Father Morgan!" Potter cried. "Miss Miller, meet Father Morgan, the street priest of Baltimore. How's it going? How're your addicts? Come in and 'have some tea!" But customers here were rare, and Morgan didn't want to interrupt. "No, no," be said, holding up a band. "I must be on my way. Blessings!" and he backed 'out the' door.

He cut through an alley and came out on Marianna Street. An exotic woman with a tOrrent of black hair stood beside a hot-dog cart. Her make-up was stupendous-a coppery glaze on her skin, a flaring red slash of a mouth, and mascara so heavily applied that each eyelash seemed strung with black beads. 'Now that it was winter, she was wrapped in old coats and sweaters, but Morgan knew from warmer seasons that underneath she wore a red lace dress and an armload of chipped, flaking, gold-tone bracelets. "Zosem pas!" he called out to her, "Well, hey!" she said. She spoke extra brightly, exaggerating her lip movements. "How you today? Get a letter from home?" Morgan smiled humbly and looked perplexed.

"Letter!" she shouted. She wrote on her palm with an imaginary pencil. "You get a letter?"

"Ah!" said Morgan, suddenly realizing. He shook his head. "Pok," he said sadly. "Kun salomen baso." The corners of his mouth turned down; be scuffed a boot against the wheel of her cart.

"You poor man," she said. "Well, maybe tomorrow, huh?"

"Brankuso," he told her. "Zosem pas!" and he waved and grinned and walked on.

At the corner of Marianna Street and Croswell he hesitated. What be would really like was to turn down Croswell-just ahead in that general direction. What harm could it do? He hadn't been in several weeks. He'd resisted temptation admirably. He shoved both bands in his pockets and set out.

CRAFTS UNLIMITED, the sign in — the middle of the block said. It was an elderly building, four stories tall. The first-floor bay window was full of patchwork quilts, cornbusk dolls, samplers, woven goods, and puppets.. The windows above it were narrower, dark and uncurtained. It was the third-floor windows that Morgan watched, from the shadow of a laundromat doorway-Emily and Leon Meredith's windows. He had learned their address with no trouble at all, just looked it up' in the- telephone book. He'd learned that along about now (just before the baby's nap, he supposed) one or the other of the Merediths would float, up behind the window on the left and tug it open. A band would trail out-Emily's pale hand or Leon's' darker one- and there would be a still, considering moment while they pondered how to dress the baby for her outing. Morgan enjoyed that. (Bonny, with the last few children, bad simply thrown whatever was closest into the stroller-a blanket, or some older child's jacket; anything would do). He imagined that the Merediths would also sprinkle a few drops of milk on theft wrists before giving their daughter a bottle, and would test the water with the tip of an elbow before lowering her into her bath-whatever was instructed, be liked to believe. Whatever the proper method was. He waited, smiling upward, with both bands buried deep in his pockets. Had be missed them? No, here they came, out the glass door beside the CRAFTS UNLIMITED sign. Leon carried the baby over his shoulder, (Naturally they would not have bought a carriage.) She must be nine or ten months did by now-a fat, apple-checked child in a thick snowsuit. Emily walked next to Leon, with her hand tucked through his arm and her face "lifted and bright, talking to the baby and tripping along in her shabby trenchcoat and little black slippers. Morgan loved the way the Merediths dressed. It seemed they bad decided, long ago, what clothes would be their trademark, and they never swerved from it. Leon always wore clean khaki trousers and a white shirt. Below the sleeves of his rust-colored corduroy jacket, a half-inch of immaculate white cuff emerged. And Emily wore one of three scoop-necked leotards- brown, plum, or (most often) black-with a matching wrap skirt of some limp material that flowed to mid-calf length. He had noticed such outfits in modern-dance productions on TV, and admired theft fluidity. Now he saw that, worn on the street, they made fashion seem beside the point. In fact, the hemline was wrong for this year or even for this decade, he suspected, and 'who ever heard of such a young girl in such drab colors? But these costumes seemed to carry their own authority. She didn't look outdated at all. She' looked stark, pared down. She had done away with the extras.