The Feud by Thomas Berger Page B

said, “I want you to write a letter to this girl I am talking about. I’ll pay you for it. You can write a lot better than me. I never know what to say. You always get good grades on compositions. I remember that thing you wrote about How I Spent My Summer Vacation got an A plus, and it was hung up for Exhibit.”
    Jack chuckled. “Boy, I really made up a lot of crap for that! … What did you want me to write about to this girl?” To Mopsy he said, “Go on, Mops, take off.”
    “She’s a nice girl,” said Tony. “You know, she’s not snooty or anything, and she ain’t silly.”
    “She good-looking?”
    “She’s all right,” Tony said. “She’s nice and neat, you know? She’s not phony.” He shook his head. “I just would like to make a good impression on her.”
    Jack didn’t understand exactly what was wanted, but his brother was a nice guy. Some people didn’t get along with their brothers at all, but Jack liked Tony, even though he probably wouldn’t have known him had they not been related. But of course the same was true of Jack so far as his father went.
    “Sure,” he told Tony. “I guess I could write it. And you won’t have to pay me anything. We belong to the same family.”
    They were passing a brick house with a gray concrete porch, the roof of which was supported by more thick, squat pillars than would seem necessary. It was one of the houses Jack most hated to look at. He stopped there and pointed at it for the dog’s benefit.
    “Go. There’s your home.”
    “Hi there, Tony. Hi Jack. You come on up here, Mopsy!” These words were spoken by an enormously fat woman who emerged from the door of the ugly house and stood between the porch pillars, being more than a match for them. The dog now obeyed her and scampered toward the house. The Beeler boys returned the greeting to Mrs. Munsenmeyer, and she went indoors with Mopsy.
    “Boy,” Jack said, “is that an ugly house.”
    “I wouldn’t talk so loud,” said Tony, always the cautious one. “Somebody might hear you.”
    He was right, but this town was beginning to be too small for Jack. He would have liked to open the door one day and gaze upon a sweep of greensward which gently descended to blue water, or again, undulating prairie as far as the eye could see, or the clustered masts of the Old Port: to mention only a few of the infinite possibilities.
    The Beeler residence was just around the corner. The brothers went around to the back door, as was the custom, and entered the kitchen, and there, at the table, was their sister. It was the first time they had seen her with bright red hair.
    Jack didn’t know if he liked it or not: it had been sprung on him too quickly. “Hi, Bernice,” said he.
    “Hi Jack, hi Tony,” Bernice said. Her mother sat across from her, and before each was a cup with a teabag tab dangling from it. Bernice touched the back of her coiffure, which in addition to being red was frizzed in a funny way. “You like it?”
    “Hi, Bernice,” Tony said sadly.
    Jack said, “I don’t know yet. It’s different.”
    She said, “It’s the latest thing.”
    “Oh, yeah?” Jack asked, though not defiantly. “I thought I saw in the newsreel that it was something else.”
    “What was?”
    “The latest.”
    “No,” said Bernice. “This is it.”
    “You boys want something to eat?” their mother asked.
    “No thanks,” said Tony.
    Jack said, “Huh-uh. Say, Bernice, how’s the—”
    His mother interrupted. “Is that the way to answer?”
    “I’m sorry. No, ma’am, thank you.” He resumed with Bernice: “How’s the movie business?”
    She smiled. “I’m outa that line now, Jack. I got me a swell new job as a manicurist. You know where?”
    Boy, did that ever sound dreary! At least when she worked as a movie-theater cashier she got to see all the new pictures for nothing. “Naw,” he said.
    “In a swell men’s barbershop ,” said Bernice. “In the Hotel Continentale. How about that? You