Authors: Stephen Schottenfeld
“I didn’t. And then you said you were going to Joe’s. So I thought
that
. Why else would you go to Joe’s? And Lorie—she’s real strong on hospitality. She didn’t offer no invitation?”
“Nobody did.”
“Them two—they do whatever they want, don’t they?”
“Harlan wouldn’t want to stay there.”
“Why not? I’d stay there.”
“Well, I’m bringing Harlan home.”
“I know. You
just
told me. You might’ve said it more. In case I forgot.”
“Just a few days. Maybe even tonight.”
“About tonight—Cody’s asleep and I’m already in bed. I was dropping off when your Deanie called. I’ll be better company in the morning.”
“We won’t wake you up, when we come in.”
“Uh-huh. Just in case, I might just post a sign on the door.”
“I’ll tell him you were asleep when I called you.”
“Sounds perfect. A little white lie. Goodnight.”
Huddy knows what’s supposed to happen when he gets home. He’s supposed to sit out back and stare at what’s not there and get bummed. Sneer at his tiny square of grass and his one tree and his no-smell of pool or flowers. But he won’t be like that. Because this place is tons better than where he lived before, before he became a pawnbroker. Doesn’t have the dope track running behind his house. No cars in neighbors’ yards. No neighbor with two feet of meadowweeds that the city’s gotta threaten fines before the homeowner gets his ass up and mows it down. Only two of the houses on the block are rentals, and even those aren’t too-bad eyesores. The folks all around are solid. One neighbor works in the schools, another’s an electrician, the couple three houses down are potters, got a studio out back, and a few more on the block are steady retired. Huddy tells them all he works in collateralized loans, and if they asked he’d be more specific, but they don’t. He’s got a family, wife and kid, never thought he’d have either, turning forty empty and now look at him, having both, and Christie wants another one, and damn right let’s have three. And now Harlan’s here, too. It ain’t much, but Huddy’s keeping every bit. Just put in a new lawn set, next was gonna be the swings. He can’t wait to get there, go inside and say, “Here it is, Harlan, this is me. This is home.”
Huddy wakes from a
starlight dream to laughter he thinks is his own until he hears Christie’s voice and then Harlan’s coming into his small room like a taunt. The dream—he
knew
he’d been dreaming, saw that what he was picturing for himself, a yard deep and endless, was jumbled with what Joe had created, but knowing that it was a dream rewarded it back, like some trick he’d outsmarted. And then came Harlan’s voice, a lookout sound far away, faint and cold like a water drip, but there was a hammock spread between trees so Huddy climbed up and rolled in and nodded off, but Harlan’s voice neared and sharpened, passing over and undoing the dream, and Huddy wanted to stop the voice but his own mouth was soundless, and he wanted to move—the land was a promise in his mind that he could gather up and carry to safety, if only he could move—but his body was too heavy, sunk down in the netting, the mesh bowl now a hole dug deep, and then Christie’s voice, like a hand, slipped beneath him and led him back inside, and he woke, feeling the hammock, no, bed under him. He lay flat on his back, wrapped in a sheet, the dream severed, staring at the ceiling, a water stain in the corner because the roof wasn’t on right.
He kicks away the sheet, whips his hand out as if a curtain hung there, his anger more than the hangover squeezing his head, but by the time he reaches the doorway he feels also a mild relief that at least he isn’t being toyed with anymore, that his life is clear and true and not clouded by darkness and dreams. He showers and dresses and walks back to the kitchen, the hallway floorboards sloped, the settling cracks faultlining the walls, and he feels again the contrast of his dream and his surroundings. But then he sees Harlan in yesterday’s clothes and hears him making fun of Joe’s floating world, his hand dancing out Joe’s cultivated tastes, and Huddy’s so cheered and grateful for the company at his table: Harlan’s been too far gone these past years. Christie spoons food at Cody’s mouth, but she’s looking over her shoulder to see the joke get told, and Cody’s eyes hold there, too, his mushmouth bright orange and open like last night’s fish. “I asked her, ‘Weren’t you Miss Waitress Tennessee?
’
” Harlan says, “but she said she ain’t never been no waitress.” And Huddy realizes Harlan’s talking about Lorie and busts out laughing. He touches Christie’s shoulder, rubs it, his other hand cupping Cody’s head.
“Welcome back from Shangri-la,” Christie says.
“Wasn’t like our daddy taught us to be big,” Harlan says, “but Joe sure done figured.”
Huddy opens a cupboard, the wood sticking, and takes down a plate. He stands by himself at the barred window and stares out at the patch of weeds and dirt.
“Your brother say he’d sleep in the shed if we needed the space.”
Huddy hears Harlan’s fingers drum against the table.
“You giving me this food and . . .” Harlan’s voice dropping.
Huddy looks at the flimsy shed, pictures Harlan camped inside with a wet bedroll. “You ain’t some stranger,” he says, half-turning, seeing Harlan rub his stomach and eye his finished plate, embarrassed, the half-drunk glass of juice sucked down like he’d siphoned it.
“I ain’t feeding like little man here.” He taps the rim of the plate, pushes it away, then wipes his hand across a pant leg. “This all from the store?” he says, throwing a hand out at the front rooms.
Huddy returns to the window. “Most of it,” he hears Christie answer. “I told him I’m threatening to break loose and go to Wolfchase. Get the whole shopping experience.”
Huddy thinking about that first year when he took home everything, but then it just became stuff. Sits in his store and turns invisible. He turns to see Christie, her eyes narrowed, and he thinks maybe it’s about money, and he says What? and she blinks, her eyes moving across his face, and he realizes her glance was directed inward.
“What what?” her eyes lowered but then shifting back on him, harder, for being misread.
“Thought something was wrong.”
“She just checking you out,” Harlan says. “Her older stud.”
“I was thinking . . . I don’t know what I was thinking. I ought call my sister, okay?”
“She cute?” Harlan asks.
“Yeah, give Jeannie a call,” Huddy says, unsure why he’s naming her, since there’s no deep sisterly feeling, no closeness but no division either, just some childhood residue. He says all the siblings to himself, as if it’s giving him some power—over Harlan, he realizes—Billy then Jeannie then Christie then Jim then Johnny. Her order. Huddy and Christie had joked that they were both middle children, only Christie, being one of five, had the smaller middle. “I’ll let you know about the car seat,” he says.
“Already bought it,” she says.
“You did?”
“I told you I was getting up early.” Her eyes cut to the wall phone. And Huddy feels the room stop, with his brother being here and with Christie wanting to communicate with her own, the spoon held out frozen until Cody yells for the withheld food. As soon as he swallows, he’s finished and squirms to get out of his strapped-in seat. “Look at this mud slick,” Christie says, the plastic spoon drooping from her fingers as if it weighed of lead.
“You got houses today?”
“Two,” she says, wiping Cody’s cheeks, his face grimacing in a pucker, and then the tray.
Huddy stabs three quick bites with his fork and chews and feels himself strengthen. Coffee he’ll drink there. “You ready?”
“What else am I doing?” Harlan stands, hops. Grabs his shirt and shakes it. “Already wearing my action jacket,” and Huddy watches him shove his arms out at the air.
Two rights and the economy bottoms. Overgrown grass and trash piles and houses slumped and decayed and boarded-up. A tidy home and a few more scattered about, but losing out to the overall war-zone surroundings.
“Tell you what,” Harlan says. “When God give Memphis the enema, he putting the hose right here.” Time-warped shacks, a poverty old and eternal. “This city don’t know—rest of the world’s gone futuristic.” Harlan already feeling stuck. “All right, explain this business of yours.”
So Huddy tells a story about Jenks. About a customer with a TV, and Jenks would give him twenty-five dollars, and when the man picked up the TV, he’d give Jenks back thirty. “Sometimes, the man’d bring his thirty in a month, sometimes a week, sometimes just a couple days. This man’s carrying his TV in and out of the store for years, Jenks making five dollars, five dollars. So one day, the man comes in empty-handed, depressed, and Jenks asks him what’s wrong. ‘My TV broke,’ the man said, ‘and now I don’t have nothing to loan on.’ So Jenks walks over to the TV shelf and grabs a set and gives it free. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘now you loan on this.
’
”
Harlan smiles, laughs hard and fast. Too harsh, maybe, so Huddy adds, “I take their money and I take their risk.”
“I ain’t criticizing. Sounds so good it should be illegal. Twenty-five makes thirty. What’s that, twenty-five percent?”
“Twenty,” Huddy nods, but Harlan grimaces for the math lesson and for starting from scratch, back to another square one. A floor boy, a gofer. Huddy won’t let him near the cash drawer—not for now—and he won’t let him clean and polish the jewelry, and he knows Harlan’ll get restless, and Huddy’s gonna have to throw him a bone, give him something to be proud about. During the year of Harlan’s silence and unanswered calls, Huddy thought of traveling to Florida. But he couldn’t decide if his brother had disappeared and when to start looking. Wait too long and he’s beyond help, go too early and he’s just lying in the sand laughing at your concern.
“She fifteen years younger?” Harlan asks, and the grin tells Huddy it’s Christie.
He nods—even though the age gap is less than fifteen, but it’s closer to right than Harlan’s guess about the interest.
“Man, I don’t get my brothers. Joe’s got a third wife, and she’s old as him. A third wife who looks like a first. And you’ve got a first one who looks like a third. You ought switch.”
Gang signs spray-painted on the blood bank. Huddy shakes his head at the neighborhood welcome. He won’t let Harlan see the alarm code, so he hops out and goes to the door like a phone’s ringing and turns around and Harlan’s exited but moving slow, as if he knows what Huddy needs to do, and Huddy punches in the code. He looks back at Harlan and Harlan nods, and Huddy feels more correct than bad for guarding himself.
He shows Harlan the back room, and when they come back to the front, Huddy turns on the computer and gives him the tickets to retrieve the loans coming out of pawn. When he finishes, Huddy has him sit on a stool and watch him on the computer until Harlan glances at the wall clock and pops up. “Time for this guard dog to get armed.” He reaches for the counter gun.
“Nah, stays there.” Huddy thinks and swivels, picks another pistol from another drawer.
“I’m wearing it, right?” He grabs the belt holster from under the counter and straps it on. “You remember when we were kids and I climbed that tree and you and Joe chopped it down?”
“You remembering that now?”
“Must be all these axes I’m seeing. Joe done the chopping—but I whupped
you
.”
“Yeah, well, not as bad as daddy did.”
“Never as bad as that. He’d send us down to the basement.”
“Send us to the
furnace
,” Huddy says.
“
‘Get down behind the coal furnace and wait for me.
’
” Huddy laughing at the remembered line.
“Yeah, he’d make you
wait
.” Harlan smiling. “You knew he was getting the strap and you just had to sit there and think about it, and you knew he’d never forget you.”
Huddy nods at the shared bruises and eyes the gun now holstered at Harlan’s side. “Try not to hit anything I don’t tell you to.”
“Customer,” Harlan says.
“I see him.” A new customer bringing in an old story.
“How you doing, buddy?” Harlan says. “See anything you can’t live without?”
My baby needs diapers. My truck needs gas.
Old lines but it’s all new to Harlan. Fresh ears, and a fresh heart. Huddy can see how he identifies with the clientele, knows their end-of-the-line feelings, whereas Huddy has long moved to cynical, with everybody trying to get into his pocket. Sob stories, cover stories—you weed through a whole day of lies to pull out the truth.
“Mister Durwood, how are you?” Huddy asks and the man replies, “Man, it’s terrible when your pawnbroker knows your name.” The joke thrown to Harlan as if he’s already the audience. What would his business have been like if he’d been running it with Harlan beside him, adding a jump to the place, instead of just Joe above? And then, an old customer comes in needing to sell a Winchester ’73, and maybe Harlan can be his good-luck charm, too. “Did something stupid,” the man says. “How about twenty-five hundred? Man, I feel sick doing this.”
Huddy knows the gun is legit, the man’s owned it thirty years. And it’s going to Huddy’s favorite gun buyer: Mister Yewell, not just an enthusiast but a gentleman he trusts enough to let him take a gun apart. No one answers at Yewell’s so Huddy leaves a message: “Mister Yewell, it’s Huddy Marr from Bluff City Pawn. I got something here for you. A Winchester ’73 just came in, if you want to check it out, put your name on it.” Huddy hasn’t seen him much lately, and the last time his health looked poor, but Yewell just shrugged, “Still cleaning my guns every day.”