Mary And The Giant

3

"Gordon," she said. But it wasn't David Gordon.

It was his mother who opened the door, looking out into the night darkness and smiling vaguely at the girl standing on the porch.

"Why, Mary A

"Is Dave home?" She had, in jeans and cloth coat, left her own house as soon as di

"Have you had di

"Thanks," she said, breathing her impatience, hoping he was home because it made things more convenient; she could go to the Wren alone, but it was better to have somebody along.

"Don't you want to come inside, dear?" It seemed natural that her son's fiancee should come in; the woman held the door open, but Mary A

"No," she said. She had no time; she was hunted down by the need to act. Damn it, she thought, the car's gone. The Cordons' garage was empty, so Dave was out. Well, that was that.

"Who's there?" Arnold Gordon's hospitable voice sounded, as he materialized with his newspaper and pipe, slippers on his feet. "Mary, come on in here; what's the matter with you, standing out there?"

Backing down the steps she said: "Dave isn't home, is he? It doesn't matter; I just wanted to find out."

"Aren't you coming in? Just the old folks, Mary. Look-how about ice cream and cake, and we can chat?"

"We haven't seen you in so long," Mrs. Gordon added.

"Good-bye," Mary A

"Dave's at the Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting," Arnold said, emerging on the porch. "How've you been, Mary? How's the folks?"

"Fine," she said, closing the gate after her. "If he wants me I'm at the Wren. He'll know."

Hands in the pockets of her coat, she started walking in the direction of the Lazy Wren.

The bar was smoky with the confusion of drinking people. She pushed among the tables, past the individuals clustered around the bandstand, and to the piano.

At the piano was Paul Nitz, the intermission pianist. Slumped over, he gazed off into space, a lean, shaggy-blond young man with a dead cigarette between his lips, his long fingers tapping at the keys. Lost in his trance, he smiled up at the girl.

"I thought I heard," he murmured, "Buddy Bolden say." Into the texture of his music he wove a hint of the old Dixie tune. The thread, elaborated and diminished, was lost in the dominant theme: the bop tune "Sleep."

Assembled at the piano were a very few admirers, listening to Nitz ramble. Eyes half-shut, he nodded to one of them; the listener's face responded, and the two men nodded sagely together.

"Yes," Nitz said, "I thought I heard him as clearly as I see you now. News for you, Mary?"

"What?" she said, leaning against the piano. "Nose is ru

"It's cold outside," she said, brushing her nose with the edge of her hand. "Is he going to sing, soon?"

"Cold," Nitz echoed. He ceased playing and, from around the piano, his few admirers drifted off. The real group waited at the bandstand, and they were more patient. "You don't care," he said to the girl. "You won't be here. Minors. The world's full of minors. Do you care if I'm playing? Do you come and listen to me?"

"Sure, Paul," she said, liking him.

"I'm a hole. I'm a faintly audible hole."

"That's right," she said, sitting down on the bench beside him. "And sometimes you aren't even audible."

"I'm a musical silence. Between moments of greatness."

She felt a little calmer, and looked around the bar, measuring the people, listening. "Good group tonight."

Nitz passed her the remains of his unlit reefer. "You want this? Take it; be delinquent. Go to hell in a bucket."

She dropped the cigarette to the floor. "I want to ask your advice." Since she was here, anyhow.

Getting to his feet, Nitz said: "Not now. I have to go to the bathroom." He started unsteadily off. "I'll be back."

Now she sat alone, picking without enthusiasm at the keys of the piano and wishing Paul would return. He was, at least, a benign presence; she could consult him because he made no demands on her. Withdrawn into his private obsessions, he ambled between the Wren and his one-room apartment, reading Western novels and constructing bop tunes on his piano.

"Where's your pal?" he said, plodding back and settling himself beside her. "That kid, the one with the clothes."

"Gordon. At the Junior Chamber of Commerce meeting."

"Did you know that I was once a member of the First Baptist Church of Chickalah, Arkansas?"

Mary A

He examined the ad at great length and then returned it to her. "I already have a job."

"Not you. Me." Restlessly, she put the ad away and closed her purse. It was, of course, the new record shop on Pine Street; she had noticed the remodeling. But she couldn't go there until tomorrow, and the strain was wearing her down.

"I was a member in good standing," Nitz said. "Then I turned against God. It happened all of a sudden; one day I was saved and then-" He shrugged fatalistically. "Suddenly I was moved to get up and denounce Jesus. It was the strangest thing. Four other church members followed me to the altar. For a while I traveled around Arkansas converting people away from religion. I used to follow those Billy Sunday caravans. I was sort of a Blue-Monday Nitz."

"I'm going over there," Mary A

"Sure," Nitz agreed.

"I'd have a chance to talk to people ... instead of sitting in an office typing letters. A record store's a nice place; something's always going on. Something's always happening."

"It's lucky for you," Nitz said, "that Eaton stepped out." Taft Eaton was the owner of the Wren.

"I'm not afraid of him." A Negro was crossing the room, and she sat suddenly very upright on the piano bench. And she forgot Nitz beside her, because there he was.

He was a large man, with blue-black skin, very shiny, and-she imagined-very smooth. He stooped, a slump of his muscular body; that was an unbending of his personality, and she, watching him, could feel it flowing across and reaching her even where she sat. His hair glowed oilily, thick, rippled; important hair, elaborately attended to. He nodded to several couples; he inclined his head toward the people waiting at the bandstand, and then he passed on, massive in his dignity.

"There he is," Nitz said.

She nodded.

"That's Carleton B. Tweany," Nitz said. "He sings."

"He's big," she said, and watched fixedly. "Jesus," she said. "Look at him." It made her ache to see him, to imagine him. "He could lift a truck."

It had been a week, now; she had first spotted him on the sixth, the day his stand at the Wren opened. He had, they said, come down from the East Bay, from a club in El Cerrito. In this interval she had measured him, gauged him, absorbed from a distance as much as possible.

"Still want to meet him?" Nitz asked.

"Yes," she said, and shuddered.

"You're sure hopped tonight."

She poked Nitz with her elbow, urgently. "Ask him if he'll come over. Come on-please."

He was approaching the piano. He identified Nitz, and then his great dark eyes took in the sight of her; she felt him noticing her and becoming aware of her. Again she shuddered, as if she were rising through cold water. She closed her eyes for an instant-and when she looked again he was gone. He had started on, his hand around his drink.