Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (i am reading a book TXT) 📕

one quick motion caught the delicate chain in his hand and ripped the necklace from around her neck. She screamed. The two young men were stunned with surprise and looked at him bewil-deredly, as though he were some phantom of the night. July gave them a quick defiant look, turned and ran, disappearing in several long bounds into the darkness of an alleyway.

That night he sat by himself on a bench and watched cars moving on silent rubber tires.

The following day he didn’t leave his cement room at all, even to eat. He lay, or sat, and stared at the walls. His estimation of himself was low, stupid and shameless. He took the diamond to a pawnbroker, who eyed him with suspicion as he noticed the broken chain, and offered him $100 for it. “Give it back,” July demanded, and it was given back. He refused to take it back where he’d bought it, and resolved to keep it; and later he fixed the broken chain with a pair of tweezers and kept it in one of his glass jars.

The experience hung over him like a cloud and, whatever he tried to do, he couldn’t seem to manage without reflecting upon it, and finally, once again, the laughter would loom up just as it had in the empty street, and he’d hear the voice. “A paper boy. Really, Charlotte, a paper boy!”

While working with Ed Shavoneck, he’d think, Newspaper boy. Lousy newspaper boy. Once more he tried to pawn the diamond, but was once again insulted. So he added it to his collection of most valuable possessions: his cat, his gun, his bullets, his pictures, his Bible and now his diamond. Many times he carried it with him in his pocket and took it out and admired it.

Days passed. He worked behind the green counter as if in a trance.

In a phone booth.

“Hello—this is July . . . July Montgomery. If you still want me, when can I go to work?”

“Oh yes, July.” Pause. “How’s your cat?”

“Fine.”

“Good, good. Excuse me, but do you remember that job I was talking about to you? I mean, did I really offer you a job?”

“Yes, we were talking about it a few months ago, at Shapiro’s.”

“Oh, yes, Shapiro’s. Just a minute, will you—” Then he must have cupped his hand over the receiver, because July couldn’t hear clearly enough to know anything about the conversation he was having at the other end. It wasn’t very long before he was back on the line.

“Here we go—you still there?”

“Yes—about the job.”

“Oh yes, the job. Well, why don’t you come on over and we’ll talk about it. You know where the store is?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s . . . Sure you do. It’s in the phone book. You must have used a phone book.”

“Oh, I guess I did at that.”

“You should learn to use your head. When are you coming?”

“Right away.”

“Fine, fine. Look forward to seeing you. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” said July, but the connection had already been broken. I’ll have to remember that, he thought: Keep your finger on the receiver button and press it just as the other person starts to say goodbye—leaving the impression that you’re only half interested.

Carroll’s Furniture was not nearly as large as July thought it would be. He’d pictured himself going to work in a store with large glass doors, in a place where if you didn’t wear a $400 Fifth Avenue suit, you’d look out of place. No, this was a crouching toad of a building, surrounded by a railway storage yard, a warehouse and an immense parking lot. Little, frame windows and a door hardly big enough to get a comfortable chair out. (Foolish, he thought; all that goes on through a back door.) He went in.

The inside looked bigger than the outside and was very clean and the ceiling was high, with good lighting, but not a place where being without a Fifth Avenue suit would be noticed. For such a large store, July thought, it seemed funny for it to be so empty. But it was Wednesday morning—possibly a poor time for selling furniture. Carroll seemed to materialize out of nowhere and took him back into the shop.

The job, he learned, was not quite as glamorous as he’d imagined. But then Carroll didn’t see anything wrong or degrading about it. “You won’t make much at first,” he explained, “but after you learn your way around I can use you in more places. In essence, you have to start somewhere, and so that’s the bottom.”

What it consisted of was sweeping, dusting, helping to unload furniture trucks, refinishing and reupholstery work in the shop, and sales work in the evening (but very little of that because he was too young and unknowledgeable). The pay was less than he had made as a newsboy, but he could live on the second floor with his cat, furnish it as he pleased, and Carroll would put in a bathtub. He could use the toilet behind the cash register (whichmeant, though he didn’t say it out loud, that he could roam at will throughout the whole building). Twenty dollars a week.

July accepted, and they shook hands. In a moment of unexpected outwardness, he showed his new boss his diamond. Carroll showed him a larger one on his ring, took him upstairs and showed him the little apartment quarters in a room that had been an office when the building belonged to a textile merchant. It had been equipped with a kitchen when the upstairs had been rented by a square-dance club, and was now out of use. The rest of the floor was storage space for furniture, as was the third floor. Carroll reiterated that he would have a tub installed and showed July that he would have his own private entrance and exit—a small fire escape leading to the ground from a door beside the refrigerator.

“It’s an awfully big room,” said July.

“Well, it’s good you think so at least. Any complications about leaving