Table Money by Jimmy Breslin

Author:Jimmy Breslin [Breslin, Jimmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4539-2
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2012-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

9

IN THOSE DAYS THAT followed, days that ran into weeks and then became part of weeks that turned into months, on each of those days, he started across a slippery deck, with one hand clutching a taut rope, and always there was the temptation to let go and be carried away with the water and over the side into the heavy seas. Resisting, he would trip the rope with both hands. He simply would raise his arms and feel the water smack him on the chest and sweep him off. He was returning home less and less frequently. Often he would wake up in the hog house, or in his old room in the cemetery, and stare out at the headstones and flinch at the depression that shook him to the legs.

In the house on 74th Street, Dolores Morrison felt the first shadows of every evening were aimed directly at her life. There was one night when Gladys Farrell, who lived four doors up, stopped in. A white top covered a midsection that embarrassed her. Unbrushed brown-gray hair made her seem older than her fifty years.

“Waiting,” Gladys said.

“Looks like it.”

Gladys Farrell sat down heavily. “For a change, Eddie’s home. Home dead. He was out so late last night he was a zombie today. He was going to take me out last night. A movie. Huh. At eight o’clock, no word from him. At nine o’clock, he calls me from up the avenue. He said he couldn’t look at a movie. You know why? ‘My eyes hurt too much.’”

“You didn’t believe him,” Dolores said.

“Who knows what I believe anymore. I went up to meet him for a drink at Fritz’s. He was saving my life inviting me out. When I walked in, and I say walk because we don’t have a car, you know that, well, when I walked in and saw him with all this money spread over the bar, I felt sick.”

Dolores nodded. “Owney brings me money like he found it in the street.”

“I’m married thirty-two years; I can’t do much now. If I was your age, I’d know how to handle it.”

“How?”

“Stop protecting him. If he lies when he gets home, I wouldn’t believe him. If he doesn’t get home when he says he’s coming, then I wouldn’t let it pass.”

Dolores said nothing.

“I’d find the saloon he goes into and I’d walk right in while he’s there and have a drink while he’s there.”

“That’s not me,” Dolores said.

“Why?”

“Because I’m better than that.”

Gladys Farrell shook her head. “Confront the man! That’s the only way to change things. After all, you loved him enough to marry him. You can’t just turn off an emotion. You love him.”

“He ought to remember he loves me.”

“It takes these men time to realize.”

“What do you call time?”

“Thirty-two years and I’m still trying. But I’m hoping. That’s love, I guess.”

“Whose love?”

Gladys said nothing, finished her cigarette, and left. Dolores sat as the shadows came down the alley outside her kitchen window and reminded her of the hours that kept passing.

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