Chapter 18

After a long discussion on the telephone, Sammy and Polly went to see "Way Down East," a long film starring Lillian Gish that had just opened and featured several color sequences. They sat amid a large crowd in the flickering dark of the classy Knickerbocker Theater, spellbound near the end as the heroine struggled her way through a blizzard and the organ music crashed about them. Then they came out into the warm evening, still holding hands.

"That was the best one I've ever seen," Polly said, taking a deep breath and shivering. She leaned against Sammy's shoulder. "It was such a sad story and it was really frightening, wasn't it?"

"But it had a happy ending," Sammy said, squeezing her hand as he helped her up into the truck. The film had amazed him and brought tears to his eyes but he was sure he should not admit either. It had also cost him seventy cents for two tickets, more than he had ever paid for a movie.

"That was awful, you know, out there on the ice. I was scared." She put her hand to her heart.

"I don't know how they did it. Looked so real." He stood at the radiator, his right hand setting the crank and smiled at her, trying to appear nonchalant, worldly, something he was not sure he could name, something he wasn't. Mature, that was the word. He was not relaxed.

She set the controls and he started the engine and then climbed aboard with a small smile. Sammy was absolutely sure that no other patrons in that fancy theater had come to the picture show in a Model T delivery truck.

They navigated the nearly empty city streets and drove out Massachusetts Avenue past the embassies and big homes and up the long hill to stop under the archway of the apartment house at the crest. He smiled at the doorman, and they went up on the creaking elevator with the brass doors. At the apartment door, Polly turned to face him, key in hand, smile on lips.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll think about that story for a long time."

"About her baby?" he asked.

She nodded, turned up her face and closed her eyes. He kissed her gently and she smiled. For just an instant he thought of Robert and her infatuation. He shuttled that idea aside and looked down at her lovely face.

"Good night," he said. "Remember we go dancing Saturday."

"Poo," she said, opening the door, "one little kiss, that's all I get." She stamped her foot, jiggling her unfettered breasts beneath her clinging chiffon, and slammed the door behind her.

Sammy was home by ten-thirty, having done a great deal of thinking on the way, and his mother was still awake, sitting at her kitchen table with a final cup of coffee, the stove clean, everything put away. He got a bottle of Hires root beer from the icebox and sat down across from her.

"Good picture show?" she asked.

He nodded. "Very good, that Lillian Gish is really something. Don't know how they staged some of those things. I'm sure it was a real blizzard in one scene when they had her out on these moving ice floes in all this snow and wind. I wouldn't have done it."

"Have a good time?" She peered over her spectacles at her youngest.

He smiled and nodded. "Let me ask you something. There has always been a family story that you asked Seth to marry you; is that true."

She shook her head. "Your father asked me to marry him at least a half dozen times before I said yes and set the date. I think your brother made up that tale. Why do you ask?"

"Well little Polly, the girl I took to the picture show tonight, she came to the store last week and said I should marry her, said she had it all arranged, all figured out, that she had made up her mind."

Caroline Williams smiled. "Did she? I remember her now. Pretty little thing, that huge hat."

"Yep, said she had decided and that her father approved."

"I hope you didn't laugh at her."

"Oh no, I told her thanks for the offer, and suggested that we might like to get to know each other first."

"And?" said Sammy's mother, paging through her own memories of Seth and his long-dead older brother, the two men she had loved and borne children for. She remembered how she and her Robert had come together as if preordained, certainly not by chance.

"Said September would be a good time to get hitched." Sammy chuckled to show he thought it was pretty funny, but inside turmoil reigned. He drank from the bottle and then licked his lips.

"Sounds like she has decided all right." Caroline studied her son, her baby. It was about time he was getting married. She was ready for a few more grandchildren to add to the fifteen she had.

"The last time I saw her, the first time I ever saw her, down at Robert's apartment, last summer, well, I kissed her, Ma, when I took her home, and she kissed me back. But that was all, just a couple of kisses."

"My my," Caroline said, trying to look serious.

"I mean that's not enough for a girl to decide to marry someone; well is it?"

"I wouldn't think so, but didn't you write her a time or two?"

Sammy nodded. "But she never answered my letters so I quit writing."

"Hm," Caroline said and covered her son's hand with hers. "It will all work out, you'll see. She seemed like a nice girl, very polite and helpful; very attractive too as I recall."

"Geeze Louise," Sammy said loudly and then he lowered his voice, aware of the hour, "she's pretty and all, but married. My God, Ma, married. I hardly know her."

"You'll have to decide, unless she changes her mind. Girls do change their minds, so I've heard, especially these modern girls. Have you thought about where you would live, I mean if you did get married some day?"

"Uncle Luke's house is still empty with that For Rent sign out front. I suppose I could live there."

"It's a nice enough house, but just has Franklin stoves for heat and a very old fashioned kitchen. It still has a pump on the sink."

Sammy finished his drink and shook his head. "I'm going on to bed. Six o'clock comes awful early some mornings." He kissed his mother's cheek and went to his room.

Sammy lay on his back, his hands behind his head. He tried to think of all the girls he had known. For about the hundredth time he was very happy he had never tried any of those French girls with their flirty ways, the ones easily available for a few francs. More than half his company had the clap at one time or another and a few had worse than that.

He stroked his penis and thought of Millie and of how happy she looked in her flowing wedding dress in the church full of apple blossoms. He wondered why she had married Phil and not Billy Clagget. He remembered the woman who had robbed him and a girl with long pigtails who had chased him around the schoolyard and a blonde with dimples. He could not think of her name. Was it Nancy? He felt his erection growing.

Horace Williams, his great uncle's older son, might take less than $20 a month for the house and garden; I could afford that, he decided, maybe a hundred a year the way the store is going. He turned to his side and rubbed the sheet with his erection. Wonder what he'd sell it for.

He breathed deeply and tried to clear his mind as he stopped arousing himself. Maybe I ought to sell the store and go back to work for Bill Birch; that was safer, a lot safer. No, that was dumb; it's getting better. Damn, life is complicated. Yes, it was Nancy, the blonde girl. He let go of his penis and slept.