A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952) Read online

  I didn’t speak. I dragged on the cigarette. The smoke burned into my lungs. I coughed and threw it away. She was still staring at me. “What’re you looking at?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’m going to get a drink of water,” I said quickly. I hurried into the house and through the darkened rooms into the kitchen. I turned on the water, filled a tumbler, and drank it thirstily.

  “Aren’t you going to give me any?” she said over my shoulder.

  I turned around. She was standing behind me. I hadn’t heard her follow me. “Sure,” I said. I filled the glass again.

  She held it in her hands for a moment, then put it back on the sink untouched. She put her hands on my face. They were cold from the tumbler.

  I stood there woodenly, my body stiff and unmoving. Then her mouth was against mine. She was bending me back, across the sink. I tried to push her away, but I was off balance.

  I gripped her shoulders tightly and heard her gasp in pain. I squeezed harder and she cried out again. I straightened up. She was standing in front of me, her eyes swimming in pain. I laughed. I was stronger than she. I squeezed her shoulders again.

  She grimaced and her hands caught wildly at mine. Her lips were against my ear. “Don’t fight with me, Danny. I like you. And I can tell you like me!”

  I pushed her away violently. She half stumbled back a few steps, then stood looking at me. Her eyes were glowing, almost luminously, like a cat’s eyes in the dark, and her chest was heaving from exertion. I knew it then as I watched her: she was right.

  The noise of a car turning up the block came to our ears. My voice was a frightened sound in the night. “They’re coming back! You better get out of here!”

  She laughed and took a step toward me. Alarmed by a fear I didn’t understand, I bolted for the stairway and stood nervously on the steps, listening to her voice float up to me out of the dark.

  She was so sure, so wise. She knew so much more than I that as I answered her I knew it would do no good. Nothing could stop what was happening to me.

  Then she was gone, the house was quiet, and I climbed slowly up the stairs to my room.

  I lay there on the bed, staring out into the dark. I couldn’t sleep. The sound of her laughter, sure and knowing, still echoed in my ears.

  I could hear the light click on in her room. Automatically I glanced toward it. She was there, looking toward my windows and smiling, and her naked body glistened in the electric light. Her voice was a husky half-whisper as it came through the open window. “Danny, are you awake?”

  I shut my eyes and turned away from the window. I wouldn’t look. I wouldn’t answer.

  “Don’t try to fool me, Danny. I know you’re there.” Her voice had grown harsh, with a tone of command. “Look at me, Danny!”

  I couldn’t stand the sound of her voice hammering at me any longer. Angrily I went to the window and leaned against the window-sill, my body trembling. “Leave me alone,” I begged her. “Please leave me alone.”

  She laughed. “Look at me, Danny,” she said softly. “Don’t you like to look at me?”

  I stood there staring at her speechlessly. I didn’t want to look at her, but I couldn’t turn away.

  She straightened up and laughed. “Danny!”

  “What?” I asked in an agonized voice.

  “Turn on your light, Danny. I want to see you!”

  For a moment I didn’t understand her; then her words sank into the depths of my mind. My breath caught sharply in my throat.

  “No!” I cried out. Shame and fear tore through me. I moved away from the window. “Leave me alone, I tell you, leave me alone!”

  “Turn on the light, Danny.” Her voice was soft and persuading. “For me, Danny, please.”

  “No!” I screamed at her in a blazing moment of rebellion. I hated everything that was happening to me—all the things I would become, my growing manhood and its manner of expression.

  “I won’t!” I shouted, and ran out, slamming the door on my room and all that I could see from it.

  I ran down to the bathroom and stripped off my pyjamas.

  I held on to the sink with one hand and turned the water on in the shower. The sound of the water drumming against the bottom of the tub was soothing. For a moment I stood there, then stepped under the spray.

  The cold water striking my heated body sent a rapid chill through me. I braced myself against the needle spray. Then suddenly I slumped to the floor of the tub and began to cry.

  In the morning when I woke up it was as if nothing had happened. As if last night had been part of a dream, a nightmare, that sleep had washed away.

  I brushed my teeth and combed my hair, and while I dressed I hummed a song. In surprise, I looked at myself in the mirror. With a sense of wonder, I realized there was nothing wrong with me.

  I left the room smiling. Mimi was in the hall, going to the bathroom. “Good morning,” I sang out.

  She looked at me and smiled. “Good morning,” she replied. “You were sleeping so soundly last night you didn’t even hear us come in.”

  “I know.” I grinned at her. I guessed our private war was over. Rexie followed me down the stairs.

  “Morning, Ma,” I called, going into the kitchen. “Rolls today?”

  Mamma smiled tolerantly at me. “Don’t ask foolish questions, Danny.”

  “Okay, Ma.” I took the money from the tumbler at the sink and started for the door. “C’mon, Rexie.”

  Wagging her tail, she followed me out of the house. She ran past me in the alleyway and out into the street, where she squatted down in the gutter. I looked at her, smiling. It was a beautiful morning; it would be a wonderful day. The sun was shining and the air was fresh and crisp.

  Rexie started off down the block and I followed her. Last night was a bad dream, that’s what it was, it never really happened. I took a deep breath. I could feel my chest bursting against my shirt as my lungs filled.

  “Danny!”

  Her soft, quiet voice stopped me in my tracks. Slowly I turned and looked up at her stoop. She was standing there, her eyes wise and smiling. “Why did you run away last night?” she asked, almost reproachfully.

  A bitter taste rose into my mouth. It was true. It wasn’t a dream, then; I couldn’t escape. I began to hate her. I spat on the sidewalk. “You bitch!”

  She was still smiling as she came off the stoop toward me. Her body reflected the sureness she felt. Her walk reminded me of the way she’d looked last night in front of her window. She was close to me, her lips smiling up into my face. “You like me, Danny, so don’t fight,” she said cajolingly. “I like you.”

  I stared at her coldly. “I hate your guts,” I said.

  She stared back at me. The smile left her face, and an expression of excitement came into it. “You think you mean it, but you don’t,” she said, lifting her hands and making a curious gesture.

  I stared at her fingers as she slid her forefinger around in the palm of her other hand. I looked up at her face again and she was smiling.

  I turned quickly and ran down the block, calling Rexie. But I wasn’t really running after the dog; I was running away from her. And I knew I could never run fast enough to keep from growing up.

  Chapter Six

  I SAT quietly on the stoop, my hand idly scratching Rexie’s head. It was my last night at home. Tomorrow morning Mr. Gottkin would pick me up in his Ford and we would go off to the country. I felt sad. It would be the first time I had been away from home for any length of time.

  The night hung quietly around us. The house was dark. Only the kitchen was lit up, where Mamma and Papa were still talking. I leaned over the dog. “Now you be a good girl while I’m away,” I whispered to her. She wagged her tail slowly. She understood everything I said to her, she was the smartest dog I ever saw.

  “The summer isn’t very long anyway,” I said. “Before you know it, it’ll be fall an’ I’ll be back.”

  She nuzzled her cold nos
e into my hand, and I rubbed her under her chin. She liked that.

  I heard the Conlons’ door open and looked up. Marjorie Ann came out on the stoop. I got to my feet quickly, called Rexie, and started down the block. I didn’t want to talk to her.

  “Danny!” I could hear Marjorie Ann’s footsteps running after me. I turned back. She caught up to me all out of breath.

  “You’re going away tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded my head.

  “Mind if I walk a little way with you?” she asked in a small, humble voice.

  I looked at her in surprise. This didn’t seem like her at all. “It’s a free country,” I said, starting off again.

  She fell into step alongside me. “Pass everything, Danny?” she asked sociably.

  “Uh-huh,” I said proudly. “Eighty-five average.”

  “That’s good,” she said flatteringly. “I almost flunked math.”

  “Math. is easy,” I said.

  “Not for me,” she replied brightly.

  We turned the corner silently, our footsteps echoing hollowly on the sidewalk. We walked another block before she spoke again.

  “Still mad at me, Danny?”

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. There was a hurt expression on her face. I didn’t answer.

  We walked almost another block. Then I heard her sniff. I stopped and turned to her. If there was anything I hated it was a girl bawling. “Now what?” I asked harshly.

  Her eyes shone with tears. “I didn’t want you to go away mad, Danny,” she sniffed. “I like you.”

  I snorted derisively. “You have a funny way of showing it. Always teasing me and making me do things I don’t want to.”

  She was really bawling now. “I—I was only trying to do what you’d like, Danny.”

  I started on again. “Well, I don’t like it,” I said shortly. “It makes me nervous.”

  “If I promise to stop, Danny, will you still be mad at me?” Her hand caught at mine.

  I looked down at her. “Not if you really promise to stop,” I said.

  “Then I promise,” she said quickly, a smile breaking through her tears.

  I returned her smile. “Then I’m not mad any more,” I said. Suddenly I realized I had never really been mad at her. It was myself that I had been angry with. I had liked what she had done to me.

  We walked along, her hand still holding mine. Rexie ran into some open lots, and we waited for her to come out.

  Marjorie Ann looked up into my face. “Can I be your girl, Danny?”

  “Holy cow!” The exclamation burst from me involuntarily.

  Instantly the tears spilled over into her eyes again. She turned and began to run away from me, sobbing.

  I stood there for a moment gawking after her. Then I ran and caught her by the arm. “Marjorie Ann!”

  She turned to face me, her body still shaking with her tears.

  “Stop bawlin’,” I said. “You can be my girl if you want.”

  “Oh, Danny!” She threw her arms around my neck and tried to kiss me.

  I dodged her. “Aw, cut it Marge. You promised.”

  “Just a kiss, Danny,” she said quickly. “That’s all right if I’m your girl.”

  I stared at her. There was no arguing with her logic. Besides, I wanted to kiss her. “Okay,” I said grudgingly, “but that’s all!”

  She pulled my face down to her and kissed me. I could feel her warm lips moving under mine. I pulled her closer to me and she hid her face against my shoulder. I could hardly hear her voice. “I’ll do anything you want, now I’m your girl, Danny! Anything you want,” she repeated. “I won’t tease you any more.”

  Her eyes were shining earnestly. She didn’t seem like the same girl I had known all this time. There was a warmth in her that I had never seen before.

  I kissed her again, slowly. I could feel her pressing closely against me, and a fever rising in my blood. A pulse began to pound in my temples. Quickly I pushed her away.

  “Then let’s go home, Marjorie Ann,” I said gravely. “This is all I want.

  Papa called me as I started up the stairs. I came back to him. “Yes, Papa?”

  There was an embarrassed look on his face. He looked at Mamma, but she was reading the evening paper and didn’t even look up. He fixed his eyes somewhere on the floor and cleared his throat. “You’re going away for the first time, Danny,” he said awkwardly.

  “Yes, Papa.”

  He was looking up at the ceiling now, carefully avoiding my eyes. “You’re a big boy, Danny, and there’s certain things your mother and I feel we ought to tell you.”

  I grinned. “About girls, Papa?” I asked.

  He looked down at me in surprise. Mamma had put down her paper and was watching me.

  I smiled at them. “You’re a little late, Papa. They teach those things in school nowadays.”

  “They do?” he asked incredulously.

  I nodded my head, still grinning. “If there’s anything you want to know, Papa, don’t be shy. Just ask me.”

  A smile of relief came to his lips. “See, Mary,” he said, “I told you we didn’t have to say anything to him.”

  Mamma looked at me doubtfully.

  I smiled at her reassuringly. “You don’t have to worry, Mamma,” I reassured her. “I can take care of myself.”

  I went up the stairs still smiling. They just didn’t know who they were talking to. I was an expert on girls. Hadn’t I just proved that this evening?

  Chapter Seven

  “DOES she lay, Danny?” I glanced at the boy disgustedly. His face was flushed as his eyes followed the girl on to the porch.

  I reached down and locked the concession counter before I answered him. If I had heard the question once, I had heard it a thousand times since I’d come up here. This was my third summer at the Mont-Fern Hotel and Country Club.

  “They all do,” I replied casually. “What the hell do you think they come up here for, fresh air and sunshine?”

  The other boys around the counter all joined in the laughter, but he was still watching her. “Man,” he said in an awed voice, “there’s something about some dames in slacks!”

  “Who looked at the slacks?” I asked carelessly. “I’m strictly a blouse man myself.” I started to lock up the concession while they were still laughing. These waiters and bus-boys never spent a dime. They were up here for the few bucks and the tail. They weren’t even good at their work, but the hotel didn’t care. All they wanted them for was to keep the guests happy, and the guests were mostly dames, so everybody was happy with the arrangement.

  The boys drifted out on the porch and I watched them go. Most of them were older than me, but I thought of them as kids. I felt old. Maybe it was my size—I was five eleven—or maybe it was just because I was a veteran of three summers. I picked up the daily receipts report and began to make it out. Sam liked to have his reports in order.

  I remembered my first summer up here. I was real green then. That was right after my Bar Mitzvah. I was just a punk kid sucking after Gottkin, hoping it would get me into the football team in the fall. But Gottkin never came back to school. The first night up here he cleaned out the concessionaire in a crap game. The next day he was in business. Before the first week had passed, he knew he wasn’t going back. “This is for me,” I remembered him saying. “Let some other shmoe wet-nurse a bunch of kids.”

  I helped him instead of working for the hotel, and he did all right. Hit the Miami Beach route in the winter, and the next summer he took over the concession at the next hotel along the road as well as this one. This summer he had five working. A couple of boys in each place and all he did was come around once a day and pick up the dough. No more Ford for him; he drove a Pierce roadster with the top down now.

  But that first summer had been rough. I guess the green stuck out of my ears. I was the butt of every joke the boys could think of, and all the girls teased hell out of me. Sam finally had to tell them to lay off. He was
afraid I would lose my temper and belt one of them.

  I didn’t want to go back the next summer, but when Sam came over to the house and told me that he had picked up the second spot and I would run this one, I had gone with him. We needed the money. Papa’s business was really up the creek. I picked up five hundred dollars for my end of the summer.

  I remember Mamma’s face when I put the dough on the kitchen table and told her to keep it. There were tears in her eyes; she turned to Papa, trying to hide them from me. Her lips were quivering, but I could hear what she said: “My Blondie.” That’s all.

  Papa came close to tears himself. Each day in the store had become more frustrating than the one before. The money would go a long way. But his lips had tightened with stubborn pride. “Put it in the bank, Danny,” he had said. “You’ll need the money to go to college.”

  I had smiled. He wasn’t kidding me, I knew better. “We can use the dough now,” I had said with undeniable logic. “I got two more years before college stares me in the face. We can worry about it then.”

  Papa had looked at me for what seemed like a very long time. Then he reached out a trembling hand and picked up the money. “All right, Danny,” he had said, “but we’ll remember it. When things get better, you’ll get it back.”

  But even as he spoke we all knew the money was gone. Business wasn’t getting any better, it was getting worse. It went the same way everything else did, down the drain.

  But that was last summer and I had already kissed the dough goodbye. This summer Sam had promised me an extra hundred if I beat last year’s take. I finished the report and summed up the season’s business thus far. All I needed was a break during these last few weeks of the season and I was set. I looked at my watch. There was just time enough for me to grab a swim before lunch.

  I finished locking up the concession and went out on the porch. The new broad and the boy with big eyes were playing table tennis. The girl had style all right, but her backhand could stand a little work.

  I walked up behind her and took the racket out of her hand. “Loose, baby, loose,” I said confidently. “Watch me. You’re too stiff.”