Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry Page 18

  I wrote to Rosie after the visit and finally moved to Madrid to be with her, marry her. My father’s letter said, “You have chosen this girl in order to disappoint us,” and that might have been true. A family business, he called it that day at the dinner table, as if the store were a particular hair color or birthmark, or the shape of shoulders just like your father’s, and denials could not shake it from you.

  But marrying Rosie worked.

  I’d been at Benson House for six months when Eddie called me to the phone.

  “Western Union, Mr. Green,” he said.

  The Western Union lady’s voice was all business as she said, “Dear Joseph. Will visit you August tenth at noon. Your sister, Evelyn. We’ll send you a printed copy right away.”

  I waited a few seconds, not sure what part of the message was from Western Union and what from Evelyn. “They do it this way now, huh,” I said.

  “What?”

  “By telephone. Takes the drama out somehow.”

  “We do it this way, sir,” said the woman, and hung up.

  I wondered whether Evelyn had telegrammed for the drama of it. I didn’t know whether she was given to such stuff, though this wasn’t the first I’d heard from her. In 1965, at Christmastime, I got a letter from her, my only sibling. It wasn’t directly to me, actually—it was titled “Holiday Bulletin” and was addressed to “Dear Friends.” It explained everything that had happened to Evelyn and her family in the past year, including this line: “Of course, most of you know that my father passed away this July. He was seventy-five.” The letter had been duplicated on some kind of machine, and the blue words seemed projected onto the page, out of focus, not part of the paper itself.

  The next Christmas I got another Holiday Bulletin, and the year after that a package besides, full of candied fruit and stale cookies, wrapped according to regulations (which meant she had called to find out). Evelyn kept up her side of the correspondence for the rest of my time at Fort Madison, never allowing me the luxury of a return address. The bulletins carried Indianapolis postmarks for the first few years and then started coming from Boynton Beach, Florida. I saved those letters and re-read them, soothed by the lists of relatives I had never known and never would, reports of weddings and births and the occasional death and never a mention of me.

  When I got the Western Union call, Eddie stayed in the room and watched my face carefully. I never get phone calls, and he was worried. Eddie, like the other men here, is always a little scared, always thinks that someone is calling to say, We made a mistake. You have to come back now.

  “My sister,” I explained. “She’s coming to visit me. Next week.”

  “You have a sister,” he said.

  “Younger,” I told him. “I haven’t actually spoken to her since 1935. Still haven’t—that was a telegram.”

  “Well,” said Eddie. He has family problems of his own, including a little boy who visits here now and then and never stops crying.

  “It’s good,” I said finally. “I’m glad.”

  But the week was tense. Eddie lowered his voice in a superstitious way when he mentioned Evelyn.

  “This lady, your sister,” he said. “Don’t let her upset you.”

  “Not me,” I told him.

  He was quiet a minute. “You don’t talk about these things,” he said. “Not healthy. You can’t cure whatever’s wrong by ignoring it.”

  “That’s counselor crap,” I told him. “Talk doesn’t fix everything.” I was mad at him, maybe the first time I ever was. But I was calm. “Eddie,” I said. “Words are not it.”

  Whatever was wrong with me is still wrong with me. Whatever it is, it started that morning in 1936, when I woke up in our attic bedroom and the house was empty of its usual smells because Rosie Roach the hired girl had packed them all up with her clothing and the frying pans. She was sleeping downstairs, waiting for one of her boyfriends to come to the rescue. I told the judge I had nothing to say on the matter, and I still have nothing. I am not over it, I am not over it, I will never be over it.

  Young people have a hard time believing that anything is permanent.

  The morning Evelyn was set to come, I waited in my room. I didn’t want to keep staring out the front window. Eddie poked his head in every now and then. He was sorry about our argument, and so was I, but too nervous to apologize. Because we worked for the house, we were the only ones home weekdays, with the other men at their jobs and Dave Massey at the church.

  “Things okay, Mr. Green?”

  I nodded.

  “Going to be okay?”

  “I expect so.”

  “I’ll be around, you know, in case.”

  At two he knocked on my doorframe.

  “You have a visitor,” he said formally.

  My heart began to skitter in my chest like water on a hot grill. I was worried that it would evaporate completely.

  I walked to the front sitting room, and there was Evelyn, an old woman already, old suddenly, and barnacled with rhinestones. They were everywhere: on her ears, on her fingers, on the odd plastic purse in her hand. They even clung, hard and gray, around the collar of her sweater. I felt a rush of pleasure in recognizing that she was dressed thirty years out of date: her old-fashionedness, and my recognition, were sweet, and my heart cooled a little.

  “Well, Joseph,” she said.

  She stood up, shook my hand, and squeezed it. Then she looked uncomfortable for a moment.

  “Have a seat,” I said, pointing her to the dusty sofa that one of the church ladies, upon her death, had been kind enough to give us.

  Evelyn looked at me, and I saw her readying for speech: the news of the past fifty years, the news of her life. I couldn’t see anything of the Evelyn I had grown up with, a nervous but badly behaved girl who, unlike me, was not the hope of the family. This woman was calm and a little sloppy—her lipstick was put on bigger than her lips, and her hair was cut short and had no color to it. The face, which was sensible, did not match the fussy spangled sweater or the full flowered skirt that looked like they belonged to a much younger woman, and maybe they did—that is, to Evelyn thirty years before. What I saw was the Evelyn I got to know in the letters, a woman who, because she was in charge of the holiday correspondence, seemed to be in charge of the family and maybe the world. I felt like I was watching her on television. I was terrified of what she might say.

  She said, “Do you remember the servants’ stairs at the house at Williams Street?”

  Williams Street was where our family lived. When we were small, Evelyn and I dragged wood crates to the top of the back stairs and used them as sleds; Evelyn’s crate once bounced at the landing and she broke her collarbone.

  “I still dream about thumping down those stairs,” she said, “and when I wake up, I’m achy all over till I remember it was a dream.”

  Please consider these words: do you remember. They mean everything.

  Do you remember is the game sweethearts and friends play, and strangers from the same college who meet at the bus stop. Married people lead a life of it, I guess: do you remember our meeting, our courting, our parting. There is something so personal and lovely and casual in that line.

  It was something that no one had said to me for fifty years.

  “Those crates.” I shook my head.

  That afternoon, we remembered: the teacher at School #27 who had her nose broken by a boisterous boy; the children’s room at the John Herron Art Institute; Portia Alberghetti, the Italian girl down the street who had webbed toes and showed them to anyone who’d ask; how we thought all Italians had webbed toes; Mae West; 5046L, which was our phone number; the revival that came to town one summer; being dragged by our father from the revival; “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime”; Aunt Fanny’s pies, which tasted of metal; every knick-knack in our house and the stories that went with them. Such old, dear friends.

  We remembered absolutely nothing that happened after 1935; nothing important at all. She worked my memory like it
was a machine, saying remember this, and this.

  Finally I said, “You’re pretty brave, coming here to see me.”

  “You’re telling me.” She put a hand on her stomach. “I was so nervous I thought of slipping out the back way. I’m okay now,” she added.

  “So. How are you?”

  “Well.” She pursed her mouth. “My husband died.”

  When she said this, I recognized her for the first time. The little bit of the Evelyn I knew that was left showed itself, something fretful to her lips.

  “When,” I asked.

  “Oh, about a month ago. He had a heart attack. So I put my home on the market and left Florida.”

  “Where do you live now?”

  “I don’t,” she said. Her eyes were a little blurry, but the rest of her face was amused. “I’m on vacation. I’m driving places—every night, I send a postcard to my daughter that says, ‘Here I am, don’t worry, I’m safe.’” She looked up at me. “You’re the only living relative who knows where I am.”

  All I could say was, “No kidding?”

  Out of her strange bag she pulled a stack of postcards kept together with an elastic band.

  “You know,” she said suddenly, “you’re still a very handsome man. I will note that on tonight’s postcard.”

  “No kidding,” I said again. “I always wondered if you ever mentioned me to your children.”

  “Yes.” She laughed. “I’m sorry to say they’re awfully embarrassed and refuse to tell the grandchildren.”

  This got my Irish up. So there I was, disappointing generations ahead of me. Still, I understood it a little.

  Evelyn read aloud as she wrote on the postcard. “‘Dear Mandy. I am in the Midwest, visiting my brother, Joseph, who is a very distinguished man—’”

  “I thought I was handsome.”

  “‘—and is handsome besides. I am fine and will go on to Chicago tonight.’”

  “Say that I say hello.”

  “‘Your Uncle Joseph sends his regards. Love, Mother.’”

  It was the best letter I ever heard, not because of the handsome or distinguished, but because she awarded me “uncle.”

  I walked her to the car. From the back seat, which was filled with suitcases and laundry baskets and even an old ukelele, she pulled out two boxes and handed them to me.

  The first was a big flat box with an unassembled fan, an orange price tag half scraped off in the corner.

  “It seemed awfully hot,” she said.

  The second held a pair of old shoes.

  “They were Dad’s. He wanted you to have them, don’t ask me why. They’ve been around awhile. Keep meaning to send them to you.”

  The shoes were oxblood oxfords, twisted very badly out of shape. My father had feet wide as an ax blade, and I suddenly remembered that his shoes were always too narrow; I saw him sitting in his chair after a long day at the store, rubbing his sore and mistreated toes.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Evelyn touched the corner of her own mouth, very tenderly. “All these years I thought of you as a ghost.”

  I pulled at my fingers. I smoothed my hair. I said, “But I’m not.”

  “No,” she said, and I couldn’t tell whether she was relieved or frightened. “You’re not.”

  “Well,” she said. “It’s a long drive to Chicago.” She stood on her toes like a girl, and kissed my cheek. “I’ll send you a postcard.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” I told her.

  “Used to think the same myself.”

  I opened the car door for her.

  “Love you, Joe,” she said.

  I answered, “Me too.”

  She drove slowly down the street, her arm waving out the window till she turned the corner. I thought, There goes my sister.

  I had the definite feeling I would never see her again. But it was fine.

  The weather seemed strangely chilly for August, but then again I am not especially knowledgeable about weather, or seasons for that matter. I carried my boxes inside.

  Eddie was standing in the front hall.

  “You didn’t introduce me,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “It’s okay. How are you doing, Mr. Green.”

  “Well.” My mouth felt full of mist. “Okay.”

  “Do anything for you?”

  I looked at my boxes. “Yes. Could you ask somebody else to wash tonight? I think I’m going to turn in now.”

  He looked at his watch. “Four-thirty,” he observed. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes. Tired, that’s all.”

  “Sure I’ll ask. I know these visits. They can really drag you down. You sleep tight, Mr. Green.”

  “I will. See you in the morning.”

  “Count on it,” he said.

  In my room, I played all the old games. I reviewed our conversation, putting in what I wish I had said—a few morbid jokes, a few more truths. For instance, when she said at the car, I love you, now I answered with the actual words, and others besides: I miss you, dear, I wish I knew you.

  The fan was a complicated affair—an oscillating pedestal fan, according to the box, three speeds. It was in a dozen pieces. I crept into the kitchen so Eddie wouldn’t hear me and I got a knife.

  As I worked on the fan, I thought of Evelyn running across the country, in hotel rooms with the ukelele, her own children a distant memory.

  Eddie would disapprove. He says, “Don’t run away from your troubles, because they’ll sure as hell run faster.” He says think about them, make decisions, and they’ll go away.

  In 1936, I was a handsome man, it’s true.

  In 1936, the judge squinted at a report and said, “I don’t understand, was it an ax or a hammer?” and I answered, I was crying, “It was one or the other, sir, don’t let’s quibble,” and a policeman laughed, then was embarrassed.

  In 1936, a month before this, my father sent a letter that said, “You still have your whole life in front of you.” That was true, too.

  I still don’t know what it was; the papers, when I got out, did not tell me.

  These facts would not go away, not ever.

  Finally, after an hour, I got the damn fan together. It was a gawky thing, but when I plugged it in, it worked. The sun hadn’t set yet, but I turned down my quilt.

  I placed the thing so that, in its oscillations, it would cool all of me: first toes, then up to my head, then back. I parked the shoes under my bed.

  It got pretty cold during the night, and I woke up a few times shivering. Every time I did, I hunkered down under the covers, and watched the fan slowly turning its head like a long-extinct bird, patiently scanning the room, holding its judgment for morning.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to the James Michener and the Corpernicus Society, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the National Endowment for the Arts for their generous support. Thanks also to Karen Adelman, Karen Bender, Joshua Clover, Allan Gurganus, Bruce Holbert, Sue Miller, Rob Phelps, Max Phillips, Pike Porter, Henry Dunow, Susan Kamil, Karen Rinaldi, Jason Kaufman, Deb West, and especially Ann Patchett. And, of course, thanks to my family.

  About the Author

  ELIZABETH McCRACKEN is the author of six books, three of which were New York Times Notable books: Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry: Stories, The Giant’s House (a National Book Award finalist), Niagara Falls All Over Again, the memoir An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, Thunderstruck & Other Stories (winner of the 2014 Story Prize, long-listed for the National Book Award), and Bowlaway. She has received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has served on the faculty at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently holds the James Michener Chair for Fiction at the University of Texas at Austin.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Elizabeth McCracken

  Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry

  The Giant’s House


  Niagara Falls All Over Again

  An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination

  Thunderstruck & Other Stories

  Bowlaway

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  HERE’S YOUR HAT WHAT’S YOUR HURRY. Copyright © 1993 by Elizabeth McCracken. Introduction © 2019 by Elizabeth McCracken. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Originally published in 1993 in the United States by Turtle Bay Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  FIRST ECCO PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED 2019.

  Cover design by Allison Saltzman

  Cover art © Amélie Fontaine

  * * *

  The Library of Congress has catalogued a previous edition as follows:

  McCracken, Elizabeth.

  Here’s your hat what’s your hurry: stories/by Elizabeth McCracken

  p. cm.

  I. Title.

  PS3563.C35248H47 1992

  813’.54—dc20 92-56833

  0-679-40026-5

  * * *

  Digital Edition FEBRUARY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-287373-6

  Version 12152018