Hornets and Others

flat against the front, and the take-out window, open wide in the summer to serve clams and shrimp to the tourists who didn't know about the back room or were too shy or polite to barge in on the regulars, was pressed down tight and caulked. The porthole in the door was steamed; there was an untidy pile of late-season discards—paper cups and napkins—that swirled like a miniature leaf storm on the boardwalk out front.

Jimmy was pushing open the door when Bill held back. He was looking out over the water again.

'Okay if we stay outside?'

Paul looked at the two round picnic benches yet to be stored; the seats were up on the tables and the beach umbrellas—again, green and white striped—were missing from their holes. 'Little cold to sit out, Bill.' Then he added, 'Sure.'

He disappeared inside, returning with a tray of shrimp and paper cups of beer. 'This stuff's on Snooky,' he said. The other two had set up one of the tables, and Bill was once again smiling, holding the open bottle of liquor under Jimmy's nose.

'Come on, puritan. Just a sip.' He turned to Paul, beaming. 'Goofball still won't drink, will he?'

'Been trying to break him down for years.'

Bill took one of the beers and drained half of it in a gulp. His back was to the Bay. The open bottle was in front of him, nearly empty. He was quiet for a few moments and then said, 'I don't know why I came back.'

'That's not what your letter said,' Paul offered.

Bill shrugged. 'All that stuff about being with your pals, the guys you grew up with, the places you know...' He shrugged again, then grinned. 'I was drunk when I wrote that.'

'That wasn't hard to figure out,' Paul said.

'You misspelled pals four times,' Jimmy said, straight-faced. 'Spelled it with an I.'

'That's what you guys are,' Bill said, and suddenly he stood up, looking down at them. 'My pils.' He sat down again. 'Hey Paul, you still teaching at the old school?'

Paul nodded.

'Why did you come back?' Jimmy said, and now there wasn't a hint of anything but seriousness on his face.

Bill was staring down at his hands, working his fingers over the knuckles. For a moment they thought he wasn't going to say anything. He reached for the bottle, then let his hand fall back on the other one again. 'I truly don't know.'

He looked up at them, and now there was a kind of pleading in his eyes. There was something he wanted them to tell him, some word or phrase to make him say what he wanted to say. Suddenly he blurted out, 'Do you know what a shit I feel like coming back here? Do you? I was the big mouth, the one who always said that this wasn't the place to be, that there was a big world out there, that I was...' His hands were fists and he knocked them one against the other. ...That I was going to grab the world by the balls.' He laughed. 'That's what I said: grab the world by the balls. You know what I did?' He laughed again, a snort. 'I grabbed myself by the balls.'

'Hey, Bill.' Paul began.

'No, let me. You knew this would happen. The two of you knew that if I really did come back I'd go on like this.'

'We knew you'd come back,' Jimmy said quietly.

'That's a really flicked-up thing to say.'

Abruptly the hands unclenched, resting on the picnic table. There was a small plate of shrimp in front of him untouched, and as if his hands now saw what his eyes didn't register, his hands moved the plate away from him.

He went on, his voice lowered. 'Do you know that two weeks ago, when my hitch was up, I had every intention of signing back up? I'd never even thought of doing otherwise. They were paying for computer school. I was up for a promotion in rank in a few months—shit, I was even getting along with the hard-ass sergeant I wrote you about. Things were going great with Julie too.'

'You wrote about her,' Paul said. 'Said she was okay.'

Anger crept into Bill's voice. 'Did I write that I wanted to marry her? That was up the line too. And then—' He made as if he were holding a pen, poised above the table, frozen. 'And then I had that paper in front of me, and suddenly I didn't want to sign it anymore, I wanted to come back to Greystone Bay. More than anything else in the world, I wanted to come back here.'

'You remember your early letters? They were full of homesickness,' Paul said.

'Come on, that was three years ago! I told you later on I washed this place out of me. What the hell is there for me here except you guys? After my old man died and the bank took the house—shit, there's nothing here at all.' Once again anger came. 'Do you know what my long-range plans were? Another hitch, then boom, out of the army with all that computer training behind me. I was going to go to Boston, get a job with one of those big computer places on Route 128, be set for life. And with Julie. And then suddenly, none of it means anything anymore. I had a fight with her just before I got on the bus, and ended up telling her to go to hell. We'd never even had a serious argument before.'

'You can never go home again,' Jimmy quoted laconically.

'Thomas Wolfe my ass. I'm here, aren't I?'

The anger had drained out of him, leaking away to the water behind him, and now he saw the bourbon bottle in front of him and he finished it with one swallow. Another sip of beer and suddenly he smiled, washing everything else from his face. 'So I'm here, I came home, and, well, I guess it's all right.' The smile trailed a bit and his eyes wandered. 'I guess it's all right...'

 It was getting dark. Out in the harbor, where bay met and kissed ocean, a lonely foghorn sounded once, then again. Nearer, a buoy slapped itself, the mild lash of a rope on hollow metal. The air thickened, became moist, and already the few fall stars twinkled desperately, trying to shine through the heavy night coming.

They rose, and moved on. As Bill pushed his chair back he saw Snooky regarding him inscrutably through the small front window; the old bar owner nodded once in salute, and Bill waved back. There was more drink in him than he thought. He stood and found the world turning for him momentarily; then it steadied and Paul and Jimmy were there beside him. There was a heaviness in the pocket of his coat and he felt down to find the smooth glass of an unopened pint of bourbon. He left it there, tightening the collar of his coat around his neck.

They turned south, passing Port Boulevard once again, where the bright lights of the shops and stores were beginning to turn to the dimmer ones of closing time. Bill felt oddly warm and peaceful. He remembered a time when he had stolen a newspaper from one of the stands next to Woolworth's, because his old man liked the Tribune so much and wasn't buying it because the factory had had a layoff and they were keeping every nickel until they found out how permanent it would be. He'd walked two blocks, fast, with the paper tucked so tight under his arm it hurt, and then when he finally slowed down he looked down to see that he had taken The New York Times by mistake. He'd sneaked the paper back to the newsstand, not so much out of guilt as that if he had brought the Times home his old man would know he'd stolen it and whip him till his pants bled.

They passed the Boulevard, leaving the lights behind. Again the buoy slapped itself, and suddenly Bill crossed the boardwalk, facing the Bay; he put his arms on the railing and looked down the steep embankment before turning to his two friends. They saw he had a newly opened bottle of bourbon in his hand.

'Had enough?' Jimmy asked.

Bill answered, 'Never, I want to toast you two guys now.' He held the bottle out straight over the railing. His head swam but his arm was steady as the rocks below. 'To the two biggest bastards I know.'

He offered Paul the bottle, and, after Paul swallowed, he was astonished to see Jimmy take it also, a discreet sip passing into his mouth. 'Mother of God,' Bill said, his eyes growing wide, clutching at his chest. 'The world is surely ending when Jimmy Hoffman takes a drink.' Jimmy shrugged sourly and handed the bottle back.

'Do you know,' Bill said, pausing to lighten the bottle himself, 'what I thought of the other day? I thought of the time the three of us went looking for that old man in the chair. Remember? There was that story we heard, I can't remember any of it, but there was something about an old man who sat in a chair all the time.'

He looked at his friends; Paul was staring out at the water, Jimmy moving a hand along the railing, lips puckered, the taste of alcohol still in his mouth.