Rumor began two days after Mrs. Mildred Samuels was taken to the mortuary. On Saturday, while loitering, Wade's kid, Jim, heard it at the drugstore kitty-corner the Shell station. The kid was supposed to be getting a haircut, but took time for goofing off. He wouldn't have heard rumor at all, except the pinball sat near the soda fountain.
"We had our army in Europe," a sweaty man said. "We should've walked right on in and settled it. We'll have to sooner or later." He sat before a five cent glass of Coke. A straw farm-hat was shoved to the back of his head and sweat stained the hat above the hat band. His face look stream-lined. His nose stuck out nubby like one of the new Studebakers.
"That's quite a bit of territory," a second man said. "Russia's like us in a way. It's too big to occupy." This man sat slaunchwise on his stool. He watched the cashier at the cigar counter, a girl worth seeing; bobbed brown hair and leggy, though with skirt hitting mid-calf. The man wore a battered fishing hat tipped forward over horn-rim glasses. Neither man cussed because ladies were present. Across the counter a waitress scooped ice cream, leaning forward; the effect spoiled because of a primly buttoned high-neck blouse.
"They were allies, the Russians," the man with glasses said.
"And I believe everything I read in the newspaper." The first man lifted his cup, toyed with a saucer. "I believe in the Easter Bunny. Shucks, I believe in the Brooklyn Dodgers."
The other man chuckled. "I'm with you on the Easter Bunny. But, what's your beef?"
"Unions. Communism. Two names for one thing. Read your history. You'll find it goes back a long, long way." The man's voice sounded more impassioned than he looked. "Congress is looking into it."
"House UnAmerican Activities," the man with the glasses said. "It's a committee."
Wade's kid juggled nickels in his hand. The pinball's lighted backboard showed the picture of a cowboy; spurs that jingle-jangle-jingled.
"And I have read the history," the man with the glasses and fishing hat said. "Truth to tell, I teach it. Male High."
"Then I don't have to explain." The thin guy in the straw hat looked through the windows of the store, and into the street. "Samuels," he said, "what kind of name is Samuels?" He watched the waitress move beyond hearing distance. "That the hell kind of name is Samuels? Yid?"
"It could be Jewish. Don't bet on it. It could be English or Irish."
"Or Russian. There's lots of Russian Jews. There's an underground."
"We have a spy on Bardstown Road?" The man with the glasses and old fishing hat tried not to seem amused. "It would be the world's most boring job." He looked across the street at the Kaiser-Frasier dealership. "Those have to be the ugliest cars since the Chrysler Airflow."
"On Bardstown Road," the first man said, and he sounded prim, "we have some bastards named Samuels who do not come out in daytime. You hardly never see 'em. They talk like Russians. They sound exactly like Russians. There's a radio aerial up the side of their house. So what's that about?"
"There's lots of ham radios, and otherwise. I've got an aerial, myself." The straw-hat man tapped the counter with his fingers. "Don't get me wrong. I like this town. But it's a damn slow town. There's nothing here to attract spies."
"We're a central rail station north and south. We have industries. We have a waterfront. You think Stalin's just lying doggo?" The straw-hat-man's voice dropped to a near whisper. "And, for some, the war ain't over." He smiled, but not a happy smile. "It's over for one of them. The old lady croaked."
Wade's kid turned from the conversation. He muttered under his breath. "You never saw somebody dead."
The kid left the drugstore and dawdled along the street. He was of that age when kids get sick at heart; buried beneath both truth and bull, but haven't learned to tell one from the other.
In his mind and memory it went like this:
"What's a Jew?"
"Somebody from the Old Testament," his mother told him. "Some of them are nice."
"Sharp businessmen," his father told him. "I don't like the sonovbitches, but I can do business with them."
"Pushy," the Sunday School teacher said. "They want to buy houses in neighborhoods where they don't belong."
"Lucky is okay," his father said. "He's an exception. You can learn a lot from Lucky."
"Keep the yids in line," a man at the barbershop said. "They already own Taylorsville road. Won't be long before they want the whole damn Highlands."
"What's a communist?"
"Somebody who thinks the government should run everything," his mother said.
"Roosevelt did something great for his country," his father said. "He died. Communists are unions. Goldbricks. People who won't work."
"Evil men trying to take over the world," the Sunday School teacher said.
"A bunch of Red sonsovbitches spreading integration shit among uppity niggers." (According to the barber shop).
And in the kid's mind ran hymns, not jazz; and yes, Jesus loved the little children, all the children of the world.
He dawdled along the street, reluctant to head for the barber shop and more confusion. School would start soon. Almost a relief.
When Mrs. Samuels died his dad had told him to see what was going on. He had walked through the open doorway of the next-door house, wishing he were elsewhere. Men's voices came in sobs and whispers from a back room. He moved timidly in that direction, knowing he was doing wrong, but obedient.
Faded-flower wallpaper decorated the short hall and living room. A plain lamp wearing a paper shade sat on a low table. Overstuffed chairs and sofa were worn but clean. The house smelled funny, like perfumed candles. The kid wanted to leave, could not.
When he stood at the doorway to the bedroom, a short, pale man wept. The man's short-sleeved shirt did not cover a blue tattoo on his arm. All the kid could tell was that the tattoo wasn't a picture of anything. It looked different and clumsy.
A second man, thin and with tear-streaked face grabbed Wade's kid by the arm. The man did not seem angry, only determined. He seemed awful sickly, barely able stand. He practically staggered when he walked. He gave little gasping sounds, like he hurt just terrible, and his grip was weak. He didn't even shove, just urged.
Wade's kid only had the briefest look at Mrs. Samuels, but it was a look that would last. Her mouth hung open. Worse. her eyeballs had disappeared. Her eyes were open and nothin' but white. Did everybody do that? Or was it Russian?
He had returned to the auction house. Then his sister and mother went next door to Mrs. Samuels' place. When they returned his sister was wordless. She picked up a rag and furniture polish. His sister could pretend anything. She could pretend that spiffing up used coffee tables was interesting. She remained wordless for the rest of the day.
"I met her sons," his mother had said. "There's not much we can do." She sounded troubled. "They are taking it awful hard."
"Foreigners," Wade said, "Albanians or something. Italians. Noisy as all hell."
"Rest her soul, a woman just died."
"They'll send for a preacher," Wade told her. "More interruptions? No sense crying over spilled Italians."
"I'm not crying." The kid's mother had looked directly at Wade, looked around the auction house, then looked at her kids. "I probably should."
The kid heard something wrong. Her voice held quiet rebuke, the way it did after he did something dumb. He watched his dad, and his dad didn't pick up.
"You'll not tell me when to be neighborly," his mom said. "Those people are from someplace else, and they're alone. They look sickly, and nobody talks to them." She had returned to desk work, and she too, became wordless.
* * *
As he walked along the heat-stricken sidewalk, after leaving the drugstore, the kid fretted. His mom said the Samuels people were from someplace else. And what was this shit about Russia. The kid looked around, guilty because he had just thought 'shit', even if he didn't say it.
Except for windows fronting the street, all the shops had blinds pulled against the sun. A motion picture house sat next the drugstore, and after that a florist, and on the corner a barber shop. The kid had already thought shit, and now he thought worse, but fought against thinking it. Although confused, he almost understood why.
Because, he was about to get a haircut and that meant more confusion. Kids were supposed to show respect for grown-ups. The kid did not understand that there was no shortage of men even a dog couldn't respect. The sad sacks gathered at three kinds of meeting places:
V.F.W. lodges, both the sort for whites, and the fractured imitations for colored, were largely sites of good red whiskey and war stories. Most war stories were told by walking-wounded; brave men who had fallen down a staircase while drunk in such exotic ports as Trenton, New Jersey. The real soldiers, the true combatants, didn't talk all that much.
Stag bars (no women allowed, ever) were places where men went to cuss, and brag about the size of their apparatus. It was better than the V.F.W. because no one felt obliged to tell war stories, and no one felt obliged to believe them. In stag bars, men who lacked arms, or legs, or eyes, could get quietly drunk without offending sensitive southern belles, or discussing their wars, or listening to summer-soldier-horse-hocky.
But, it was barber shops that educated Louisville's young white boys, because boys were not allowed in the V.F.W., and only rarely in stag bars. Barber shops gave instruction in thoughts about society and women. A standard barber shop joke went:
Young and gorgeous female enters barber shop (where she doesn't belong) in quest of hubby. She speaks:
"Bob Cox here?"
Barber smiles. Answers:
"No ma'm, just shave and haircut."
A real howler. Always good for a chuckle.
Twirling barber pole, red and white twisting; a symbol not as ancient as the pyramids, but no spring chicken. In olden times barbers were half-baked doctors, bleeding patients; the barber pole a sign of wrapped cloths and blood.
There were lots of one-chair shops, and a few three-chair, but the average shop sported two chairs and two barbers. Thus, was it inevitable, that after a haircut and a brush-down by one barber, the other barber would say to the customer: "Drop by in a day or two and I'll straighten that out."
Customers came in shifts. Businessmen arrived during afternoons, lounging, talking politics. Store workers stopped in during lunch hour. Kids came in after school. The interesting day, though, was Saturday. The shop filled with all kinds of men and an occasional kid. Men sat, waiting their turns whilst spreading one crock after the other. Kids, who knew they should be seen and not heard, listened.
"Dago up the street a-way. Died'a too much spaghetti."
"Russian. I heard she was Russian."
"Couldn't be. You hear all kinds of crap."
Barbers served as neighborhood newspapers. Barbers prodded conversation, knowing if you kept your shop interesting, you kept your customers.
"It was murder," one barber would say.
"F.B.I. Those boys keep a sharp lookout." This from the second barber.
"Russian. I'm sure she was Russian."
"Hebe. Yid. Kike. Russian. Roosevelt let 'em in, and this goddamn Truman's worse."
"Stirring up the black folk. Stirring up the niggers."
"Good ones and bad ones. There's good niggers. Don't deny it."
"The problem ain't niggers. It's white communist nigger-lovers. Good niggers know their place."
"Their place ain't been dug yet."
"If it was murder," the first barber said, "cops don't seem to be working up a sweat."
"They've been told to back off. A Russian yid. You got to believe the F.B.I. took care of it. You can say what you want about the bastard, but Hitler was right about the Jews."
School would start soon. It would almost be a relief. When the haircut was done he could go back to work. Work would not be interesting, but would be a whole lot less confusing.