The Big Bounce

“Walter, you’re a friend of my dad’s and all, but this is between me and him.”

Ryan finished the beer in his glass and poured it full again. He was keeping a good hold, but it was almost too much, and it would be easy to let go, Bob Jr. standing close to the table with his hands on his hips and his big silver cowboy belt buckle shining level with his eyes.

Ryan said, not looking up, “Why don’t you quit standing there? Why don’t you and your friend sit down and have a beer?”

Mr. Majestyk smiled. “Now, that’s a nice suggestion. Bob, what do you say? It’s early.”

“We’ve had ours. We’re leaving now and I expect this fella’s leaving the same time we are.”

Ryan looked up at him. He said, “Don’t press it, all right? Not anymore.”

“Listen, boy, if I didn’t have somebody with me, I’d pick you up and carry you out.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Ryan said.

Mr. Majestyk was watching him. His gaze shifted to Bob Jr. and he said, not hurrying it but before Bob Jr. could say anything, “I invited this guy to have a beer with me. I’m not through yet and he’s not through. Maybe we’ll have a couple more pitchers, maybe we’ll have ten more. I don’t know. But what I want to know is if you’re going to stand there until we’re finished.”

“Walter, I told this guy this morning what he had to do.”

“Fine, you told him. Now, Bob, either sit down or stand someplace else, all right?”

“You’re saying I’m butting in. Walter, I’m saying this guy and I have business.”

“Let’s say we’re both right,” Mr. Majestyk said, “and neither of us will give in to the other. Meanwhile you left that nice-looking young lady standing by herself. Is that nice, Bob? What would your father say? What would your wife say?”

Bob Jr. hesitated long enough to show them he wasn’t being forced into anything he didn’t want to do. And when enough time had passed, looking at Ryan and slowly moving his gaze to Mr. Majestyk, he said, “I’ll run her home, but don’t be surprised if you see me again.” He had to give Ryan another look before turning away.

The girl waited with her arms folded, watching Ryan, then looking up at Bob Jr.’s tight, serious expression as he came toward her. She said, “Wow,” and walked out ahead of him.

“Do you want to know something?” Mr. Majestyk said. His eyes were a little watery; he was feeling the beer, but he spoke quietly, well enough controlled. “You probably wonder why I want to hire you. Why you. Do you want me to tell you why?”

“Go ahead,” Ryan said. The guy was going to tell him anyway.

“This might sound nuts, I don’t know, but I saw the movies, right? And I talked to the sheriff’s cops about you and I said to myself, ‘That’s a good kid. He stands up. Maybe he’s had a rough life, bummed around, and had to work. No chance to go to college, no trade-‘ You don’t have a trade, do you?”

“Not that pays anything.”

“Right,” Mr. Majestyk said. “No college education, no trade. I think to myself, ‘What’s he going to do? He’s a good one. He’s got something other guys don’t have. The son of a bitch stands up. But listen, I know this. It isn’t easy always to keep standing up. I mean, it’s better if you got somebody to help you once in a while. You understand what I mean?”

Just picturing the girl standing there, waiting by the bar, and the way she looked at him before she walked out, gave him the funny feeling again.

“Do you understand what I mean?”

“Yeah, I understand.”

“So I said to myself, ‘Do you want to see him throw his life away, bumming around, getting into trouble, or you going to help him? Give him an opportunity, a place to live, something to do.’ “

“That’s what you said to yourself.”

“Maybe not in those words.”

“I go to work at the Bay Vista.”

“Say till Labor Day, then we see what happens.”

“Janitor at a motel.”

“Not a janitor.”

“Handyman. I become your handyman and I’m all set.”

“Listen, I’m not giving you anything. You come to work for me you work. Maybe I find out you’re a bum and I got to throw you out.”

“If I take the job.”

“If you take the job, right.”

“You going to protect me from Bob Junior too? See nothing happens to me?”

Mr. Majestyk stared at him. He did not move or show anything in his eyes, though a line seemed to tighten down the sides of his nose. He sat hunched forward, not taking his eyes from Ryan, and finally he said, “You can stand up, but Jesus Christ you’re dumb, aren’t you?”

“I never asked you to stick up for me.”

“Forget it,” Mr. Majestyk said. “All right?” He said it quietly, his expression dead. “I’m going home. Come with me or stay, I don’t care. If you feel like it, think over what I said and if you want to work, come by my place tomorrow morning eight o’clock. If you don’t want to, don’t. Either way you’ll do what you want.”

He went to the bar to settle their bill and walked out without looking back.

“What’s the matter?” the Indian-looking waitress said to Ryan. “Doesn’t he feel good?”

“He went home, that’s all.”

“He said you could have whatever you wanted.”

Ryan looked at her. “I never asked him for anything.”

“Who said you did?” The Indian-looking waitress took away the empty pitcher and glasses. A few minutes later she watched Ryan pick up his bag and walk out.

6

THE PICTURE WINDOW of Cabana No. 5 looked out on the shallow end of the swimming pool, a deserted pool at nine in the morning, partly in shade, unmoving.

Virginia Murray had been up since a quarter to seven. She had eaten breakfast: orange juice, toast, and Sanka, straightened the kitchenette, made her bed, showered, removed the curlers from her hair and combed it out, and had put on her aqua bathing suit and terry-cloth robe. She had also written to her mother and father, telling them, oh, was it ever good not to have to get up and rush to work. She didn’t mind at all now the other girls not coming. It was more of a rest being alone.

Sitting on the couch across from the picture window, and with the floral print draperies drawn open, she could look straight out to the swimming pool and the cabanas across the way and see it all framed as a scene, a stage set, while she remained in the darkness of the audience. She thumbed through McCall’s. She looked at her watch: a little after nine. She pulled at the bra of her one- piece aqua bathing suit where the edge dug into her chest. She looked in the straw bag next to her to make sure the Coppertone was inside. And the Kleenex. And comb, which she took out of the straw bag now and went into the bathroom and combed her hair again in the mirror, her head turned, cocked slightly, the corner of one eye watching the movement of the comb, the eye now and again meeting the eye in the mirror and looking away. She returned to the couch and sat on the towel she had spread over an end section. As she picked up McCall’s again she saw two little boys standing at the edge of the pool.

The Fisher boys from No. 14, one of the cabanas facing the beach. In a few minutes their teenage sister