The Wayward Bus (11 page)

Once or twice, on his wife's insistence, he had tried to warn Mildred against men just to teach her to protect herself. He hinted and believed that he had considerable knowledge of the world, and his complete knowledge, besides hearsay, was his one visit to the parlor house, the stags, and the dry, unresponding acquiescence of his wife.

This morning Mildred wore a sweater and pleated skirt and low, moccasin-like shoes. The three sat at the little table in the lunchroom. Mrs. Pritchard's three-quarter-length black fox coat hung on a hook beside Mr. Pritchard. It was his habit to shepherd this coat, to help his wife on with it and to take it from her, and to see that it was properly hung up and not just thrown down. He fluffed up the fur with his hand when it showed evidence of being crushed. He loved this coat, loved the fact that it was expensive, and he loved to see his wife in it and to hear other women speculate upon it. Black fox was comparatively rare, and it was also a valuable piece of property. Mr. Pritchard felt that it should be properly treated. He was always the first to suggest that it go into summer storage. He had suggested that it might be just as well not to take it to Mexico at all, first, because that was a tropical country, and second, because of bandits who might possibly steal it. Mrs. Pritchard held that it should be taken along, because, in the first place, they would be visiting Los Angeles and Hollywood where everyone wore fur coats, and second, because it was quite cold in Mexico City at night, so she had heard. Mr. Pritchard capitulated easily; to him, as well as to his wife, the coat was the badge of their position. It placed them as successful, conservative, and sound people. You get better treatment everywhere you go if you have a fur coat and nice luggage.

Now the coat hung beside Mr. Pritchard, and he ran his fingers deftly up through the hairs to clear the long guard hairs from the undercoat. Sitting at the table, they had heard through the bedroom door Alice's hoarse, screaming attack on Norma, and the animal vulgarity of it had shocked them deeply, had driven them as nearly close together as they could be. Mildred had lighted a cigarette, avoiding her mother's eye. She had done this only in the six months since she had turned twenty-one. After the initial blow-up the subject had never verbally come up again, but her mother disapproved with her face every time Mildred smoked in front of her.

The rain had stopped and only the drips from the white oaks fell on the roof. The land was soggy, water-beaten, sodden. The grain, fat and heavy with the damp, rich springtime, had lain heavily down under the last downpour, so that it stretched away in tired waves. The water trickled and ran and gurgled and rushed to find low places in the fields. The ditches beside the state highway were full, and in some places the water even invaded the raised road. Everywhere there was a whisper of water and a rush of water. The golden poppies were all stripped of their petals now, and the lupines lay down like the grain, too fat, too heavy, to hold up their heads.

The sky was beginning to clear. The clouds were tattering, and there were splashes of lovely clear sky with silks of cloud skittering across them. Up high a fierce wind blew, spreading and mixing and matting the clouds, but on the ground the air was perfectly still, and there was a smell of worms and wet grass and exposed roots.

From the area of the lunchroom and garage at Rebel Corners the water ran in shallow ditches to the large ditch beside the highway. The bus stood shining and clean in its aluminum paint, and the water still dripping from its sides and its windshield flecked with droplets. Inside the lunchroom it was a little overwarm.

Pimples was behind the counter, trying to help out, and this would never have occurred to him before today. Always, in other jobs, he had hated the work and automatically hated his employer. But the experience of the morning was still strong in him. He could still hear Juan's voice saying in his ears, “Kit, wipe your hands and see if Alice got the coffee ready yet.” It was the sweetest-sounding sentence he had ever heard. He wanted to do something for Juan. He had squeezed orange juice for the Pritchards and carried coffee to them, and now he was trying to watch the toaster and scramble eggs at the same time.

Mr. Pritchard said, “Let's all have scrambled eggs. That'll make it easier. You can leave mine in the pan and get them good and dry.”

“O.K.,” said Pimples. His pan was too hot and the eggs were ticking and clicking and sending up an odor of wet chicken feathers that comes from too fast frying.

Mildred had crossed her legs and her skirt was caught under her knee, so that the side away from Pimples must be exposed. He wanted to get down that way and look. His darting, narrow eyes took innumerable quick glances at what he could see. He didn't want her to catch him looking at her legs. He planned it in his mind. If she didn't move he would serve the eggs and he would take a napkin over his arm. Then, after he set down their plates, he would pass their table and go on about ten feet and drop the napkin as though by accident. He would lean down and look back under his arm, and then he would be able to see Mildred's leg.

He had the napkin ready and he was mixing the eggs to get them done before she moved. He stirred the eggs. They were stuck by now so he scooped shallowly to leave the burned crust in the pan. The odor of burning eggs filled the lunchroom. Mildred looked up and saw the flash in Pimples' eye. She looked down, noticed how her skirt was caught, and pulled it clear. Pimples saw her without looking directly at her. He knew that he had been caught and his cheeks stung with blood.

A dark smoke rose from the egg pan and a blue smoke rose from the toaster. Juan came in quietly from the bedroom and sniffed.

“God Almighty,” he said, “what are you doing, Kit?”

“Trying to help out,” said Pimples uneasily.

Juan smiled. “Well, thanks, but I guess you'd better not help out with eggs.” He came to the gas stove, took the hot pan of burned eggs, put the whole thing into the sink, and turned the water on. It hissed and bubbled for a moment and then subsided, complaining, in the water.

Juan said, “Kit, you go out and try to start the engine. Don't choke her if she won't start. That'll only flood her. If she doesn't start right away, take off the distributor head and dry the points. They may have got wet. When you get her started, put her in low for a few minutes and then shift her to high and let the wheels turn over. But be careful she doesn't shake herself off those sawhorses. Just let her idle.”

Pimples wiped his hands. “Should I open the grease cock first and see if she's still full?”

“Yeah. You know your stuff. Yeah, take a look. That gudgeon grease was pretty thick this morning.”

“It might of shook down,” said Pimples. He had forgotten the last look at Mildred's leg. He glowed under Juan's praise.

“Kit, I don't figure anybody would steal her, but keep an eye on her.” Pimples laughed in sycophantic amusement at the boss's joke and went out the door. Juan looked over the counter. “My wife's not feeling very well,” he said, “What can I get for you folks? More coffee?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Pritchard. “The boy was trying to scramble some eggs and he burned them up. My wife likes hers moist—”

“If they're fresh,” Mrs. Pritchard interposed.

“If they're fresh,” said Mr. Pritchard. “And I like mine dry.”

“They're fresh, all right,” said Juan. “Right fresh out of the ice.”

“I don't think I could eat a cold-storage egg,” said Mrs. Pritchard.

“Well, that's what they are, I wouldn't lie to you.”

“I guess I'll just have a doughnut,” said Mrs. Pritchard.

“Make mine the same,” said Mr. Pritchard.

Juan looked frankly and with admiration at Mildred's legs. She looked up at him. Slowly his eyes rose from her legs, and his dark eyes were filled with so much pleasure, were so openly admiring, that Mildred blushed a little. She warmed up in the pit of her stomach. She felt an electric jar.

“Oh—!” She looked away from him. “More coffee, I guess. Well, maybe I'll take a doughnut too.”

“Only two doughnuts left,” said Juan. “I'll bring two doughnuts and a snail and you can fight over them.”

The engine of the bus exploded into action outside and in a moment was throttled down to a purr.

“She sounds good,” said Juan.

Ernest Horton came quietly, almost secretly, out of the bedroom door and closed it softly behind him. He walked over to Mr. Pritchard and laid the six thin packages on the table. “There you are,” he said, “six of them.”

Mr. Pritchard pulled out his billfold. “Got change for twenty?” he asked.

“No, I haven't.”

“You got change for twenty?” Mr. Pritchard asked Juan.

Juan pushed the “No Sale” button on the cash register and raised the wheel weight on the bill compartment. “I can give you two tens.”

“That will do,” said Ernest Horton. “I've got a dollar bill or so. You owe me nine dollars.” He took one of the tens and gave Mr. Pritchard a dollar.

“What are they?” Mrs. Pritchard asked. She picked one up but her husband snatched it out of her hand. “No you don't,” he said mysteriously.

“But what are they?”

“That's for me to know,” said Mr. Pritchard playfully. “You'll find out quick enough.”

“Oh, a surprise?”

“That's right. Little girls better keep their noses out of what doesn't concern them.” Mr. Pritchard always called his wife “lit tle girl” when he was playful, and automatically she fell into his mood.

“When do iddle girls see pretty present?”

“You'll find out,” he said, and he stuffed the flat packages in his side pocket. He wanted to come in limping when he got the chance. He had a variation on the trick. He would pretend that his foot was so sore that he couldn't take off his shoe and sock himself. He would get his wife to take off the sock for him. What a kick that would be to watch her face! She'd nearly die when she saw that sore foot on him.

“What is it, Elliott?” she asked a little peevishly.

“You'll find out, just keep your pretty hair on, little girl.”

“Say,” he went on to Ernest, “I just thought up a new wrinkle. Tell you about it later.”

Ernest said, “Yup, that's what makes the world tick. You get a new wrinkle and you're fixed. You don't want to go radical. Just a wrinkle, like they call it in Hollywood, a switcheroo. That's with a story. You take a picture that's made dough and you work a switcheroo—not too much, just enough, and you've got something then.”

“That makes sense,” said Mr. Pritchard. “Yes, sir, that makes good sense.”

“It's funny about new wrinkles,” said Ernest. He sat down on a stool and crossed his legs. “Funny how you get a wrong idea. Now, I've got a kind of an invention and I figured I could sit back and count my money, but I was wrong. You see, there's lot of fellows like me traveling around living out of a suitcase. Well, maybe there's a convention or you've got a date that's pretty fancy. You'd like to have a tuxedo. Well, it takes a lot of room to pack a tuxedo and maybe you only use it twice on a whole trip. Well, that's when I got this idea. Suppose, I said, you've got a nice dark business suit—dark blue or almost black or oxford—and suppose you got little silk slipcovers like little lapels and silk stripes that just snap on the pants. In the afternoon you've got a nice dark suit and you slip on the silk covers to the lapels and snap on the strips and you've got a tuxedo. I even figured out a little bag to carry them in.”
²

“Say!” cried Mr. Pritchard, “that's a wonderful idea! Say, why I've got to take up room in my suitcase right now for a tuxedo. I'd like to get in on a thing like that. If you get up a patent and put on a campaign, a big national advertising campaign, why, you might maybe get a big movie star to endorse it—”

Ernest held up his hand. “That's just the way I figured,” he said. “And I was wrong and you're wrong. I drew it all out on paper and just how it would go on and how the trousers leg would have little tiny silk loops for the hooks for the stripes to go on, and then I had a friend who travels for a big clothes manufacturer”—Ernest chuckled—“he put me right mighty quick. ‘You'd get every tailor and every big manufacturer right on your neck,' he said. ‘They sell tuxedos anywhere from fifty to a hundred and fifty bucks and you come along with ideas to take that business away with a ten-dollar gadget. Why, they'd run you right out of the country,' he said.”

Mr. Pritchard nodded gravely. “Yes, I can see the point. They have to protect themselves and their stockholders.”

“He didn't make it sound too hopeful,” said Ernest. “I figured I'd just sit and count the profits. I figured that a fellow, say, traveling by air—he's got the weight limitations. He's got the right to save room in his suitcase. It'd be like two suits for the weight of one. And then I figured maybe the jewelry companies might take it up. Set of studs and cuff links and my lapels and stripes all in a nice package. I haven't got around to that yet. Haven't asked anybody. Might still be something in it.”

“You and I ought to get together for a good talk,” said Mr. Pritchard. “Have you got it patented?”

“Well, no. I didn't want to go to the expense until I could see if anybody was interested.”

“Oh,” said Mr. Pritchard. “I guess maybe you're right. Patent attorneys and all, they cost quite a bit of money. Maybe you're right.” Then he changed the subject. “What time can we get started?” he asked Juan.

“Well, the Greyhound gets in around ten. They bring regular freight and some passengers. We should get started at ten-thirty. That's the schedule. Can I get you folks anything else? Some more coffee?”