into his jacket. He was so mad it took him twice as long as it would have taken a child.
“And if I want back talk,” he was yelling, “I’ll ask for it. And if you can’t handle a sane conversation, then don’t talk to me!”
Pat was on the couch, holding a coffee cup, but then she put it down to be less encumbered.
“And if you don’t like me to talk to your help then don’t invite them up here for a party!”
“You telling me who to invite and who not?”
“Whom, Walter.”
“I’m going nuts!”
“Good morning,” I said.
“You go to hell, too!” said Lippit.
I went back to the door and said, “All right. I’ll see you, maybe?” but then he called after me I should wait, he’d come along right away.
I stood around while he finished with his jacket and while Pat sipped her coffee as if it was poison but she liked drinking poison. Once she kicked at a glass on the floor.
The whole place was a mess. It was the standard post-party formula of cigarette butts, dead soldiers, brown dregs in the bottoms of glasses with lipstick stains on the rim. Sometimes there was a switch on the order of things and there was liquor in an ashtray and butts in a liquor glass.
I said, “How was last night?”
“I was just going to ask you the same thing,” said Pat.
“Don’t answer her.” Lippit had his jacket on but had forgotten to put on a tie. “Or you’ll end up like this room.”
I shrugged and went to the couch, meaning to sit there and wait for Lippit.
“Better not,” said Pat, “or Walter will worry that I’ll make a pass at you.”
“After last night,” he said without turning, “I wouldn’t wonder.”
They spat at each other a little while longer and I went away from that couch and sat on the window sill. In a way it was just a post-party haggle about who made a pass at whom. Not my worry. Their worry. Except, I had a notion why Pat had behaved that way.
And I don’t mean she was jealous in the antique sense of the word. Pat was modern. She and I on that couch-was it two nights ago? — that was fairly modern. Cerebral, is what I mean, and reminding of business. And then Doris had to stand by the piano and sing that song. And the chitchat about me promoting her talent. And Pat’s ambitions…
Lippit might think this was a post-party skirmish. I didn’t Maybe Pat didn’t.
I said, “You call me last night, Walter?”
“Huh?”
“No,” said Pat. “I did.”
“Whatever for?” Lippit wanted to know.
“Just for kicks,” said Pat “That’s all.”
“Brother,” said Lippit. “Bu-rother.”
It showed how mean Pat had felt and how much Lippit was out of it.
“That all you going to say?” Pat asked him. She put her coffee cup down and got ready for him.
Lippit had his tie on, his jacket, and now he grabbed his hat.
“I’m getting out of here,” he said, and we started walking.
“Jeez, you’d think she and me here was married.”
When we closed the door Pat said, “Bu-rother.”
That’s all she did. So far.
We drove down to the service depot where Lippit had his trucks, storage, and a shop for repairs. It was just normally busy there and, with the coffee break on, even homey. We went past the work benches and the half dozen jukeboxes on dollies and on to the back where the foreman had a cubicle to himself. Lippit sat down at the desk and I stood around next to it.
“Bu-rother,” Lippit said. “You’d think home might at least be as peaceful as work.”
I lit a cigarette and said, “Don’t get married.”
“That’s right. That’s why I don’t.”
We dropped that nonsense when the foreman came in. He nodded and made a comment about the nice party from the night before.
“Drop that subject,” I told him.
Then he went to the urn in the shop and brought us some coffee. We sipped and Lippit said, “Anything?”
“No,” said the foreman. “Just the usual.”
“Like what?”
“Like those machines from the Markus Company. We got a breakdown someplace. It’s one of those Markus machines.”
“Junk,” said Lippit. “Bargains. I hate bargains.”
“You got eight more on order,” said the foreman.
“That’s been canceled,” I said. “A week ago, Walter?”
“Yeah. I canceled a week ago.”
“Nothing else much,” said the foreman. “Just Jimmy and Don are late.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“Well, not Don. He’s regular. Just Jimmy off and on.”
“He’s no bargain, you know,” Lippit said into his coffee. “He just drives deliveries and could be replaced.”
“He’s all right,” said the foreman. “Not what I’d call trouble.”
Electrical repairs don’t make much of a racket and the sounds from the shop weren’t anything much. There was nothing to listen to and the three of us by the desk didn’t have much to say.
“Late on what?” I asked the foreman. “What are the two drivers late on?”
“Pickups,” said the foreman. “Today is change day.”
“You mean it’s past ten in the morning,” Lippit wanted to know, “and nobody’s been out putting in the new records?”
“Like I said, Don and Jimmy ain’t back yet from the jobber.”
Lippit picked up the phone and called up our jobber. He asked for shipping and receiving and had an argument with the guy who handled our weekly order.
“All fouled up,” said Lippit when he hung up the phone. “Lots of apologies but plenty fouled up.”
“Don and Jimmy’s okay,” said the foreman. “Like I told you.”
Nothing else went on that day, except routine which was handled by the shop. And some to-do about Lippit’s union. Nothing special, just what had to be done since Folsom was fired.
But the next day I was busy, starting early in the morning. It was public relations work of a hopeless kind. Maybe two hours of that, and then I went to see Lippit.
He was in that room he had in the club. He had been talking shipping rates with a trucking man and when I came in they were on the small talk. I took maybe five minutes of that and then I fiddled the radio. When I had it good and loud Lippit looked up, from the middle of a sentence about pennant prospects.
“You’re bothering me, Jack.”
“This is nothing,” I said. “Nothing yet.”
“What?”
“Business.”
“So talk.”
“Send him out.”
Lippit sent the trucker out, after offering a guest dip in the pool, or a steam bath if the trucker preferred, but the trucker preferred to stay as he was. He left and Lippit said, “Turn down that damn radio.”
“You like this kind of music?” I didn’t turn it off, just down.
“That’s egghair music,” he said.
“You make it sound terrible, Walter. Either say egghead, or longhair, but not the other.”
