The Man Who Was Left Behind by Rachel Ingalls Page A

this really nice boy, real nice and she really loved him, oh not like that, nothing dirty like that. Getting weepy which was bad, not getting weepy which was worse and made you think of all the men who’d kicked them in the teeth and what a miserable life.
    “My name’s Bubbles,” she said. “Guess why. For two very good reasons, that’s why.” She opened her mouth andlaughed, leaning towards him so that he caught her perfume or perhaps deodorant like a brisk whiff of floor polish. Big teeth too, what they called tombstone teeth.
    “Want a sandwich?”
    “No thanks, I’m trying to keep it down.”
    He wanted to go, but a silence fell and became too long for him to break.
    “You live here?” she said.
    “That’s right. You don’t come from around here, do you?”
    “Nah, New Jersey.”
    “Long way away.”
    “You’re telling me.” She looked unfriendly all at once, slumping lower on the stool, thinking about New Jersey.
    He finished his drink and she said, “So what’s your line, pops?”
    “Import-export.”
    “Gee, you don’t say. What do you import and all?”
    “Import bananas, export poker chips. But I’m giving it up.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Trouble with the packing crew. Bananas are all right. It’s the chips that are putting me out of business. They keep packing them upside-down.”
    “Yah? Oh gee, hey, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?”
    She wanted another cigarette. After he’d lit it for her he kept looking at the flame of the match. Mexico. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.
    “Hey, look out, you’re going to burn yourself. Are you okay? Let me see.”
    “Fine, it’s fine. It’s just that I suddenly remembered something. I have to go.”
    He hadn’t remembered anything. He simply felt a need to go back to the park. On his way there he did rememberthat he’d meant to return the library book still in his room, and turned back. He then remembered several other things, such as telling Bessie that he would be in for lunch.
    He opened the door and there she was, waiting with her arms crossed.
    “Hello, Bessie.”
    “I got your dinner for you, Mr. Mackenzie. It’s cold. You take off your coat and come on into the kitchen. I’ll heat it up again.”
    “I’m sorry, Bessie. I just forgot. I had something to eat in town.”
    She set her jaw, taking a step back as he passed through the hall, and he thought: she’s smelled the whisky and she’s saying to herself sure, you had lunch all right, out of a bottle. She didn’t like him so much any more. It was mainly the liquor that made Spellman run off.
    “Save it for later,” he said. “I’ll eat it tonight.”
    “You sure you’ll be to home?” When he was drunk she did not call him “sir” where she could avoid it.
    “I’ll remember,” he said.
    Sad, she had enough troubles already. He felt a pang at seeing her liking for him go. But maybe it was just as well, maybe everyone should learn as soon as possible; about all men, black or white, and women and children too and the rest, like the way little girls learn to count the buttons on their coats to see who they are going to marry—rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief, doctor, lawyer, Indian chief—and all the others, too, the ones who are organized, businessmen, unions, insurance companies, the internal revenue, the church, the government, put them all together and find out it’s no use counting on them. Because when it happens they won’t be there or it will be happening to them too, all over the world the management locking the doors to make sure nobody gets out without paying.
    “All right. You remember now, hear?”
    “I’ll write it down,” he said, and lurched up the stairs, holding on to the banister and coughing.
    “And Dr. Hildron call up on the telephone, about that coughing,” she called after him. “He say you get right down to his office this evening. Four o’clock. You write that down, too.”
    “All right,” he said, “all right,”