Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (8 page)

Tucker said, “That was a neat story, but what did it mean?”

“It’s fantasy,” P. John said. “You shouldn’t analyze fantasy too much. You’re supposed to feel it; you’re not supposed to intellectualize it.”

“Parents don’t come off too well in it,” Tucker said.

“Maybe they’re not parents,” P. John said. “Maybe Mama and Papa are just society, or the state, or the Mafia. Don’t understand me too quickly. A famous philosopher said that.” Then P. John changed the subject. “Any more news from Susan?”

“Didn’t you see her last night?”

“She didn’t show up at Weight Watchers. I tried to call her, but I got Mr. Hocker. He said she was at church. I’m supposed to believe
that
.”

“She
was
at church,” Tucker said. “The Heights Church is holding a five-day bazaar. All the merchants and organizations in the Heights have booths set up in the church house. Dinky’s working in the DRI booth.”

“What’s that?”

“Drug Rehabilitation, Inc.,” Tucker said. “DRI, for short. It’s her mother’s organization.”

“Hasn’t she sent me a message?” P. John asked.

“Not since the day before yesterday.”

Help Yourself had a booth at the bazaar, too, and Tucker had been helping out. Dinky had sent P. John a message telling him she’d see him at Weight Watchers. What had happened between then and now, Tucker didn’t know.

“I’ve got a Christmas present for her,” P. John said. “How’m I going to get it to her?”

“I could pick it up now, I suppose,” Tucker said.

“I guess it’s the only way,” P. John said. “Would you mind, Tucker?”

Richter School was a private school, and most of the students came from what some people called “good families.” That was supposed to imply that the families were what Tucker’s mother liked to describe as “comfortable.” The fathers were in professions like law, medicine, public relations, banking, advertising, publishing.

Most of the students lived in large apartment houses with doormen, and some lived in town houses like Tucker did.

P. John lived on the third floor of a rickety old building on West 13th Street, no doorman and no elevator. It was Tucker’s first visit there.

“My mother’s dead,” P. John said out of the blue as they climbed the worn stairs. “There’s just my father and me.”

The first thing Tucker saw when P. John opened the door to his apartment was a huge poster of Mao Tsetung on the kitchen wall, and beside that, a poster reading
BEAT THE SYSTEM!

There was a lean, boyish-faced man at the stove. He was stirring a large pot of spaghetti sauce. He had an apron around his waist; he was wearing worn khaki pants, desert boots, and a white T-shirt with a picture of Bach on the front. He had long salt-and-pepper hair, and a wide, friendly grin.

“Welcome!” he said. “I’m Perry. Who’re you?”

“This is Tucker Woolf, a classmate,” P. John said. “He came by to pick up something.”

“Stay to dinner, Tucker,” said Mr. Knight. “P. John, I’ve invited Mac to dinner, and Dewey. Dewey’s here from the Coast.”

“Thank you, anyway,” Tucker said. “I’m expected home.”

“Only four for dinner,” Mr. Knight said. “That’s a pity. I’m cooking enough for an army. I’m adding to what we had last night, Johnny.”

“Only
three
for dinner,” P. John said. “I’m not going off my diet again.”

“No one’s twisting your arm, Johnny. I really admire you, turning down your favorite dish.”

P. John said nothing. He led Tucker into the next room. All four walls were bookcases. There was a card table filled with magazines and notebooks, and a large steel file cabinet beside it.

“My father’s writing a book,” P. John muttered. He went across to a claw-legged bureau and picked up a gift-wrapped parcel that was obviously a book.

There was an old couch with a worn throw across it, a threadbare rug on the floor, a few captain’s chairs, and a long coffee table made from a piece of slate and some bricks.

“Do you want to sit down?” P. John said.

“Maybe I just better go along,” Tucker said.

“Sit down and stay awhile,” P. John’s father called from the kitchen. “Johnny never brings friends here. He’s ashamed of me.”

“I’m not ashamed of you,” P. John called back. “I just don’t agree with most of your opinions.”

P. John handed Tucker the gift-wrapped book. “Tell her there’s a card inside.”

“What’s Johnny’s girl friend like?” P. John’s father called in. “He won’t tell me a thing.”

“She’s very nice,” Tucker shouted, but Mr. Knight appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on his apron, lighting up a cigarette.

“Why don’t you call home and see if you can stay for dinner?” Mr. Knight said. “You’ll like these two old friends of mine. They’ve seen some hard times. They have a lot of interesting stories to tell.”

“All adding up to one thing,” P. John said. “They’re out of work, and they want to borrow money.”

“I really have to go home. Thanks anyway,” Tucker said.

“Dewey just got a job in a department store,” Mr. Knight said. “But if Mac and Dewey wanted to borrow money, we’d lend them money. They’re our friends, Johnny.”

“They’re your friends. I don’t make loans.”

“Johnny thinks I’m a soft touch,” Mr. Knight said to Tucker.

“I don’t think it. I know it,” P. John said. “It’s open house for the takers around here. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, and we’ll feed them and put them on the dole.”

Everyone was still standing.

Mr. Knight said, “Johnny’s still sore at me. We’d saved some money to buy him a good watch, and I spent it.”

“He
gave
it to some migrant workers,” P. John said. “Another of his donations.”

“You blew a wad on Weight Watchers, Johnny,” Mr. Knight said. “You could have bought a couple of watches with that.”

They seemed to forget Tucker was in the room.

“I earned every cent of it myself, working in Brentano’s,” P. John said.

“And I admire you, Johnny, but you’re still better off than a migrant worker.”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“You go to a private school. You have a nice, respectable job after school in a bookstore. You can buy a little Christmas gift for your girl,” Mr. Knight said. “I don’t sing any sad songs for you, Johnny.”

“You sing them all for tramps and beggars and migrant workers,” P. John said. “Don’t I know
that
!”

Tucker managed to think of something to say finally. “What’s your book about, Mr. Knight?” he said.

“It’s called
Reason and Responsibility
,” Mr. Knight answered. “It’s about sharing privilege.”

“It’s about handouts,” P. John said.

The noise of the spaghetti boiling over in the kitchen interrupted the conversation. Mr. Knight ran in to attend to it.

“I like him,” Tucker told P. John.

“I don’t
dislike
him,” P. John answered.

“This is going to be delicious spaghetti, Johnny,” Mr. Knight called from the other room. “Even better than last night.”

“He really likes it that I’m fat,” P. John said. “It’s the only way he can feel superior to me.”

Tucker didn’t know what to answer. He said, “I never knew you worked in a bookstore.”

“Tell her to try and call me,” P. John said, ending the conversation and leading Tucker toward the door. “Every time I call her they say she’s out.”

HELP YOURSELF TO CHRISTMAS

HELP YOURSELF: OPENING DECEMBER 26THON MONTAGUE STREET!

* Give a basket of Natural Foods.

* Give a Juicer, a Sprouter, a Yogurt Maker.

* Give healthy fruit & nut mixes.

* Give a darn about your/her/his/their health this CHRISTMAS!

T
UCKER’S MOTHER WAS TENDING
the booth at the church bazaar.

“Where’ve you been?” she said. “It’s almost six o’clock.”

“I stopped by at this guy’s apartment.”

“P. John Knight’s apartment?” his mother said.

“Yeah.”

“Tucker, I want to talk to you about him.”

“What about him?”

“Not here. Jingle’s going to relieve me at six,” she said. “Do you want to have dinner with me at the deli?”

“Sure,” Tucker said. “I’d like to see Dinky Hocker first. Is she here?”

“She’s here,” Mrs. Woolf said, “but I think we’d better have a talk before you see her.”

Jingle arrived in a large fur hat, smiling, reeking of martinis. He said to Tucker’s mother, “Cal went into New York today to see about that job, didn’t he?”

“How much gin did it take to give you the courage to ask that question?” she said.

“I don’t need him, anyway,” Jingle answered. “I’ll run the store myself.
My
way.”

“Just don’t smoke too many cigarettes while you mind the booth,” she said. “It doesn’t look good.”

“Tucker and I don’t care how things look, do we, Tucker?” Jingle said. He shoved his elbow into Tucker’s side and winked. “You take after your uncle, don’t you, Tucker? We don’t care how things look. Let ’em talk,” and he laughed as though he and Tucker shared a private joke.

At the deli, Tucker asked his mother, “What did Jingle mean?”

“I’m going to get to that, Tucker,” she said. “Jingle overheard a conversation I had this afternoon with Mrs. Hocker.”

“Didn’t you go to work today?”

“I took the day off to help at the bazaar. Your father went to see about that fund-raising job.”

“I thought he was never happy being a fund raiser?”

“You know better than that. So do I. But your father’s been going through a lot since he was fired. He was hurt by that.”

“What did Mrs. Hocker say?” Tucker asked.

“I’m getting to that, Tucker. I want you to understand why your father and I haven’t been paying much attention to you lately.”

“I get it,” Tucker said.

“Do you really? Because I know you’ve been going through a lot, too.”

“Is that what Mrs. Hocker said?”

“Mrs. Hocker said you’ve been trying to be very attentive to her niece.”

“I haven’t been
trying
,” Tucker said. “I’m not even sure I’ve been that attentive.”

“Are you falling for Natalia, Tucker?”

“Falling for her?”

“Tucker, don’t pretend I’m talking Latin to you. You know exactly what I mean!”

“What difference does it make?” Tucker said. “Do we have to settle it right now, over hamburgers?”

“Tucker, Mrs. Hocker thinks you’re a little too involved with the girl.”

“So what?”

“You know the girl’s background.”

“Some of it. She’s been in a special school,” Tucker said.

“She’s from a very, very, bad background,” his mother said. “It wasn’t easy for Helen Hocker to tell me about it. It’s her sister’s child, you know.”

“I’m not planning to marry her yet.”

“Tucker, don’t be flip! Natalia Line isn’t your ordinary high-school girl. Her mother was a mental case, and her father killed himself.”

“Oh.” Tucker let that information digest.

“Yes. She’s been through a great deal in her fifteen years.”

Tucker took a bite of his hamburger. He finally said, “Well, what’s that got to do with what we do together?”

“What
do
you do together?”

“Nothing,” Tucker said. “Nothing special.”

“Mrs. Hocker said she never hears any talking when she goes by a room with you and Natalia in it.”

“We’re not great talkers.”

“What do you do together?” his mother said. “What kind of a relationship is it?”

“We listen to records and stuff.”

“Sitting on the same bed in the bedroom?”

“Yeah.”

“Tucker, Mrs. Hocker doesn’t want you closing yourself off in a bedroom with Natalia.”

“The door’s always open. That’s where the record player is. That’s where Nader usually is.”

“Don’t do it anymore.”

“Okay.”

“Mrs. Hocker thinks her niece isn’t ready for such an emotional involvement.”

“Okay, I’ll ignore her,” Tucker said.

“Don’t ignore her. In fact, you’ve been invited for Christmas supper,” his mother said. “But don’t lock yourself away with the girl.”

“For Pete’s sake!” Tucker said.

“And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“This P. John Knight.
I
didn’t particularly like him. Your father didn’t like him at all. And Mr. and Mrs. Hocker don’t want Dinky to see him again. He’s very hostile.”

“He’s really not a bad guy,” Tucker said.

“I heard about that Friday night,” his mother said. “Mrs. Hocker works very hard for DRI. She really cares about those young people. She’s a very earnest woman, Tucker. This world could use more people like her, people who care what happens to the less fortunate.”

“Look at it from Dinky’s viewpoint,” Tucker said. “She’s never had a boyfriend, Mom.”

“That’s the point.”

“What’s the point?”

“She’s gone overboard for this Knight boy. He’s a bad influence. All the things the Hockers believe in, he belittles.”

“Mom, P. John means well. He wants to help Dinky lose weight.”

“The Hockers would rather have her plump and unprejudiced than thin and intolerant,” Mrs. Woolf said.

“I bet that’s something Mrs. Hocker said.”

“Nevertheless,” his mother admitted, “don’t you do anything to encourage the relationship.”

“Relationship,” Tucker sighed unhappily. “They’ve only had one real date.”

“And one real date isn’t enough to warrant a forty-dollar gold watch, is it?”

“What’re you talking about?” Tucker said.

“Dinky went out and spent forty dollars on him for Christmas,” his mother said. “She bought him a watch.”

“She did?”

“She did. Mrs. Hocker is returning it.”

“Where’d she get forty dollars?”

“That’s not the point, Tucker.”

“I get the point,” Tucker said.

“Are you sure?”

“I get it,” Tucker said, “but I think Mrs. Hocker is wrong about everything.”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

Tucker shrugged. He didn’t say anything about the gift for Dinky from P. John, which he was still carrying in his book bag.

His mother wasn’t quite finished. “About going over there for Christmas supper,” she said. “No one is going to exchange gifts, so don’t buy anything for Natalia. The Hockers have already bought the girls’ presents.”