Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

Lawrence didn’t say anything, but Eddie sensed a feeling developing in the grape arbor, like a growth. “I gotta save my money,” Eddie said harshly. “I got a date. I got thirty-five cents. How do I know she won’t want a banana-split tonight?”

Lawrence nodded again, indicating that he understood, but sorrow washed up in his face like a high tide.

They sat in silence, uncomfortably, listening to the rustle of the grape leaves.

“All the time I was practicing,” Lawrence said, finally, “I kept thinking, ‘I would like a strawberry ice cream soda, I would like a strawberry ice cream soda …’”

Eddie stood up abruptly. “Aaah, let’s get outa here. Let’s go down to the lake. Maybe something’s doing down the lake.”

They walked together through the fields to the lake, not saying anything, Lawrence flexing his fingers mechanically.

“Why don’t yuh stop that fer once?” Eddie asked, with distaste. “Just fer once?”

“This is good for my fingers. It keeps them loose.”

“Yuh give me a pain.”

“All right,” Lawrence said, “I won’t do it now.”

They walked on again, Lawrence barely up to Eddie’s chin, frailer, cleaner, his hair mahogany dark and smooth on his high, pink, baby brow. Lawrence whistled. Eddie listened with disguised respect.

“That’s not so bad,” Eddie said. “You don’t whistle half bad.”

“That’s from the Brahms second piano concerto.” Lawrence stopped whistling for a moment. “It’s easy to whistle.”

“Yuh give me a pain,” Eddie said, mechanically, “a real pain.”

When they got to the lake, there was nobody there. Flat and unruffled it stretched across, like a filled blue cup, to the woods on the other side.

“Nobody here,” Eddie said, staring at the raft, unmoving and dry in the still water. “That’s good. Too many people here all the time.” His eyes roamed the lake, to the farthest corner, to the deepest cove.

“How would yuh like to go rowing in a boat out in that old lake?” Eddie asked.

“We haven’t got a boat,” Lawrence answered reasonably.

“I didn’t ask yuh that. I asked, ‘How’d yuh like to go rowing?’”

“I’d like to go rowing if we had a …”

“Shut up!” Eddie took Lawrence’s arm, led him through tall grass to the water’s edge, where a flat-bottomed old boat was drawn up, the water just lapping at the stern, high, an old red color, faded by sun and storm. A pair of heavy oars lay along the bottom of the boat.

“Jump in,” Eddie said, “when I tell yuh to.”

“But it doesn’t belong to us.”

“Yuh want to go rowing, don’t yuh?”

“Yes, but …”

“Then jump in when I give yuh the word.”

Lawrence neatly took off his shoes and socks while Eddie hauled the boat into the water.

“Jump in!” Eddie called.

Lawrence jumped. The boat glided out across the still lake. Eddie rowed industriously once they got out of the marsh grass.

“This isn’t half bad, is it?” He leaned back on his oars for a moment.

“It’s nice,” Lawrence said. “It’s very peaceful.”

“Aaah,” said Eddie, “yuh even talk like a pianist.” And he rowed. After a while he got tired and let the boat go with the wind. He lay back and thought of the night to come, dabbling his fingers in the water, happy. “They oughta see me now, back on a Hunnerd and Seventy-third Street,” he said. “They oughta see me handle this old boat.”

“Everything would be perfect,” Lawrence agreed, picking his feet up out of the puddle that was collecting on the bottom of the boat, “if we only knew that when we got out of this boat, we were going to get a strawberry ice cream soda.”

“Why don’t yuh think of somethin’ else? Always thinkin’ of one thing! Don’t yuh get tired?”

“No,” Lawrence said, after thinking it over.

“Here!” Eddie pushed the oars toward his brother. “Row! That’ll give yuh somethin’ else t’ think about.”

Lawrence took the oars gingerly. “This is bad for my hands,” he explained as he pulled dutifully on the oars. “It stiffens the fingers.”

“Look where yuh’re goin’!” Eddie cried impatiently. “In circles! What the hell’s the sense in goin’ in circles?”

“That’s the way the boat goes,” Lawrence said, pulling hard. “I can’t help it if that’s the way the boat goes.”

“A pianist. A regular pianist. That’s all yuh are. Gimme those oars.”

Gratefully Lawrence yielded the oars up.

“It’s not my fault if the boat goes in circles. That’s the way it’s made,” he persisted quietly.

“Aaah, shut up!” Eddie pulled savagely on the oars. The boat surged forward, foam at the prow.

“Hey, out there in the boat! Hey!” A man’s voice called over the water.

“Eddie,” Lawrence said, “there’s a man yelling at us.”

“Come on in here, before I beat your pants off!” the man called. “Get out of my boat!”

“He wants us to get out of his boat,” Lawrence interpreted. “This must be his boat.”

“You don’t mean it,” Eddie snorted with deep sarcasm. He turned around to shout at the man on the shore, who was waving his arms now. “All right,” Eddie called. “All right. We’ll give yuh yer old boat. Keep your shirt on.”

The man jumped up and down. “I’ll beat yer heads off,” he shouted.

Lawrence wiped his nose nervously. “Eddie,” he said, “why don’t we row over to the other side and walk home from there?”

Eddie looked at his brother contemptuously. “What’re yuh—afraid?”

“No,” Lawrence said, after a pause. “But why should we get into an argument?”

For answer Eddie pulled all the harder on the oars. The boat flew through the water. Lawrence squinted to look at the rapidly nearing figure of the man on the bank.

“He’s a great big man, Eddie,” Lawrence reported. “You never saw such a big man. And he looks awfully sore. Maybe we shouldn’t’ve gone out in this boat. Maybe he doesn’t like people to go out in his boat. Eddie, are you listening to me?”

With a final heroic pull, Eddie drove the boat into the shore. It grated with a horrible noise on the pebbles of the lake bottom.

“Oh, my God,” the man said, “that’s the end of that boat.”

“That doesn’t really hurt it, mister,” Lawrence said. “It makes a lot of noise, but it doesn’t do any damage.”

The man reached over and grabbed Lawrence by the back of his neck with one hand and placed him on solid ground. He was a very big man, with tough bristles that grew all over his double chin and farmer’s muscles in his arms that were quivering with passion now under a mat of hair. There was a boy of about thirteen with him, obviously, from his look, his son, and the son was angry, too.

“Hit ’im, Pop,” the son kept calling. “Wallop ’im!”

The man shook Lawrence again and again. He was almost too overcome with anger to speak. “No damage, eh? Only noise, eh!” he shouted into Lawrence’s paling face. “I’ll show you damage. I’ll show you noise.”

Eddie spoke up. Eddie was out of the boat now, an oar gripped in his hand, ready for the worst. “That’s not fair,” he said. “Look how much bigger yuh are than him. Why’n’t yuh pick on somebody yuh size?”

The farmer’s boy jumped up and down in passion, exactly as his father had done. “I’ll fight him, Pop. I’ll fight ’im! I’m his size! Come on, kid, put yer hands up!”

The farmer looked at his son, looked at Lawrence. Slowly he released Lawrence. “O.K.,” he said. “Show him, Nathan.”

Nathan pushed Lawrence. “Come into the woods, kid,” he said belligerently. “We kin settle it there.”