“They take the dimes. You get pennies and the promise of a rifle.”
“Lee, he nice boy,” Marina said. “Be nice. Leave alone.”
Lee ignored her. “You need to know what’s in this book, son. Can you read what’s on the front?”
“Oh, yessir. It saysThe Condition of the Working Class,by Fried-rik… Ing-gulls?”
“Engels. It’s all about what happens to boys who think they’re going to wind up millionaires by selling stuff door-to-door.”
“I don’t want to be no millionaire,” the boy objected. “I just want a .22 so I can plink rats at the dump like my friend Hank.”
“You make pennies selling their newspapers; they make dollars selling your sweat, and the sweat of a million boys like you. The free market isn’t free. You need to educate yourself, son. I did, and I started when I was just your age.”
Lee gave theGritnewsboy a ten-minute lecture on the evils of capitalism, complete with choice quotes from Karl Marx. The boy listened patiently, then asked: “So you goan buy a sup-scription?”
“Son, have you listened to a single word I’ve said?”
“Yessir!”
“Then you should know that this system has stolen from me just as it’s stealing from you and your family.”
“You broke? Why didn’t you say so?”
“What I’ve been trying to do is explain to youwhyI’m broke.”
“Well, gol-lee! I could’ve tried three more houses, but now I have to go home because it’s almost my curfew!”
“Good luck,” Marina said.
The front door squalled open on its old hinges, then rattled shut (it was too tired to thump). There was a long silence. Then Lee said, in a flat voice: “You see. That’s what we’re up against.”
Not long after, the lamp went out.
13
My new phone stayed mostly silent. Deke called once—one of those quick howya doin duty-calls—but that was all. I told myself I couldn’t expect more. School was back in, and the first few weeks were always harum-scarum. Deke was busy because Miz Ellie had unretired him. He told me that, after some grumbling, he had allowed her to put his name on the substitute list. Ellie wasn’t calling because she had five thousand things to do and probably five hundred little brushfires to put out.
I realized only after Deke hung up that he hadn’t mentioned Sadie… and two nights after Lee’s lecture to the newsboy, I decided I had to talk to her. I had to hear her voice, even if all she had to say wasPlease don’t call me, George, it’s over.
As I reached for the phone, it rang. I picked it up and said—with complete certainty: “Hello, Sadie. Hello, honey.”
14
There was a moment of silence long enough for me to think I had been wrong after all, that someone was going to sayI’m not Sadie, I’m just some putz who dialed a wrong number.Then she said: “How did you know it was me?”
I almost saidharmonics,and she might have understood that. Butmightwasn’t good enough. This was an important call, and I didn’t want to screw it up.Desperatelydidn’t want to screw it up. Through most of what followed there were two of me on the phone, George who was speaking out loud and Jake on the inside, saying all the things George couldn’t. Maybe there are always two on each end of the conversation when good love hangs in the balance.
“Because I’ve been thinking about you all day,” I said.(I’ve been thinking of you all summer.)
“How are you?”
“I’m fine.”(I’m lonely.)“How about you? How was your summer? Did you get it done?”(Have you cut your legal ties to your weird husband?)
“Yes,” she said. “Done deal. Isn’t that one of the things you say, George? Done deal?”
“I guess so. How’s school? How’s the library?”
“George? Are we going to talk like this, or are we going to talk?”
