Alone at Night Read online

  Vin Packer

  Alone at Night

  “When you’re alone in the middle of the night and you wake like someone hit you on the head,

  You’ve had a cream of a nightmare dream, and you’ve got the hoo-ha’s coming to you…”

  T. S. Eliot

  one

  FOR ONE stunning half-second, as Slater walked through the snowy night toward Boyson’s Cafe, he thought he saw the Cloward boy on East Genesee Street. Usually, it was Carrie’s face he thought he saw in the crowd; it was Carrie looking out the window of a bus, or looking up from some table behind him, as he studied his reflection in a mirror, or in his nightmares—Carrie, the cigarette dangling from her lips, the slight tip to those lips, almost a smile of amusement, but really a thin little leer: you won’t get away with it, Slater.

  I am; you’re dead… but still, telling himself that at such times, never quite took away the sliver of terror, at the unreal nearness of Carrie. Hallucinations… but still.

  Only last week he had sent off a Christmas card to Cloward, at the penitentiary. If I can ever help you, he had dictated a little note to be enclosed… and O Mr. Burr, Miss Rae had looked up from her dictation with misty eyes which worshipped him, O Mr. Burr, to still forgive that boy, him—wrecking your life that way, drunk and O sir, you could teach us all about Christian forgiving!

  Suddenly, as Slater Burr stepped inside Boyson’s, shaking the snow from his gray-checked cap, he knew he could not face Jen’s relatives that night. He could not face another of Chris’ lectures about Jen’s life being ruined, nor the nervous frivolity of exchanging gifts by the tree, nor everyone’s asking him what the latest was about the plant… The latest was, he was losing the plant—Burr Manufacturing was going down the drain. Slater put his coat across his lap and ordered a martini. This time he saw Carrie’s face reflected in his own eyes as he looked into the bar mirror; two tiny Carrie faces, two tiny cigarettes with their smoke spiraling up in his corneas; one saying, ‘You’re not a success without me, and you never were.’… And the other? The same: you won’t get away with it, Slater.

  I’ve been getting away with it for eight years, Carrie. He picked up the martini and walked across to the phone booth. He dialed the McKenzies.

  “Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year!” Chris answered. That was Slater’s brother-in-law in a nutshell; Mr. Goody Two Shoes, spilling over with good will and do good. Chris McKenzie, head of P.T.A., S.P.C.A., and last but O God never least, the Kantogee County Chapter of A.A. … Mr. Wonderful, spokesman for The Nearly Damned, available and declamatory any Friday evening in the basement of The First Presbyterian Church: My name is Chris McKenzie, and I’m an Alcoholic.

  Slater said into the mouthpiece: “My name is Alcoholic, and I’m a Slater Burr.”

  “Very amusing, Slater… We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Boozing it up over there, as usual, Chris?”

  “I think you ought to search your heart and discover the reason you have to be so defensive, Slater.”

  “I’m just having a nice defensive ice-cold martini, very dry, with a defensive twist of lemon,” said Slater. He parodied a singing commercial: “Remem-ber how great, allthatbooze use-to-taste? Martinis—still do!”

  “Did the meeting go badly, Slater? Is that it?”

  “You’re all dying to know, aren’t you, Chris?”

  “Jen was wondering, is all.”

  “Well put Jen on,” said Slater, “and by the way, Chris.”

  “Yes?”

  “I was in Cayuta Trust this morning. Old man Caxton seemed concerned about Jen. I wonder if you think that’s any of his business?”

  “I didn’t say anything to Caxton.”

  “Right after he expressed his concern, he told me his dog had been sick last week. He told me what a fine vet you were.”

  “You’ve been drinking, Slater. You wouldn’t make those insinuations, if you hadn’t had a few.”

  “Yes, we’re all out of control but you, Chris. You just let me worry about Jen’s drinking, and my drinking.”

  “This is no way to talk tonight, Slater.”

  “It’s the Christmas spirit, Chris-mess. Let me speak with Jen.”

  “She’s across the hall at the neighbors. You’ll have to hold on.”

  Slater glanced at his watch while he waited. Eight o’clock. The stores in Cayuta, New York, were open until nine on Christmas Eve. That was a lifesaver; he still had a few more things to get Jen. Things he could not afford. Caxton had been his last hope, and Caxton had flatly refused a loan for Burr Company. It was just too risky a proposition, with the new zoning proposal… perhaps some other bank, one out-of-town. And by the way, how was Mrs. Burr (“young Mrs. Burr”, folks in Cayuta called Jen) how was young Mrs. Burr? He had heard—

  “Heard what?” Slater had not been willing to let the thought trail away.

  “O nothing.” Caxton sang-song back, “We all think she’s such a pretty little thing, that’s all, and hope she’s well.”

  Just across from Boyson’s, was the downtown employment office for Leydecker Electric. Slater could see it through the pane of the phone booth, which faced Genesee Street. Even though it was Christmas Eve, and snowing furiously outside, there was a line in front of the office. Slater knew that if he were to go out and cross the street, he would find some of his own men in that line.

  There were only a few industries in Cayuta. In addition to L.E., there was a macaroni plant, a shoe company, and The Slater Burr Manufacturing Company. The latter was the oldest drop forge factory in the country. It produced forgings for other industries, from automotive, to agricultural, to locomotive. The Stewart family had owned it for more than a hundred years until Nelson Stewart died, when Slater took control. He gave the company his name; he even changed the name of the Stewart-owned office building on East Genesee to The Burr Building. Even Nelson Stewart’s only heir had had Slater’s name: Carrie Stewart Burr, the late Mrs. Burr, killed (long sighs, sad eyes rolled toward heaven) by the drunken Cloward boy… Slater took a sip from his martini, waiting there in the phone booth. I’m getting away with it, Carrie; it’s Leydecker I’m fighting, not you, and not Cloward. He folded open the door of the phone booth and signaled for another drink. Then he fed the phone’s box nickels, at the operator’s time call.

  Jen’s voice was interspersed with the sound of the money ringing.

  “What took you so long?” Slater asked.

  “I was in the next apartment… with drinkers. Chris and Lena and assorted relatives are drinking ginger ale by the tree in the living room.”

  “I don’t want to come over. Can I skip it? Meet you home?”

  “You can do anything you want to do, darling. I’m bored to tears, and I’d love an excuse.”

  “I have a few things to get. Then I’ll meet you home.”

  “I wish we could go to Europe,” Jen said, and Slater knew then she was a little high; high, and back on going abroad forever, live on the Left Bank, on nothing—a loaf of bread, cheese, wine; what-do-we-need, we have each other. All right, all right, but not tonight, Jen, he thought; no patience tonight.

  “If Leydecker keeps at it, we may go there… in rags.”

  “Wonderful!”

  Slater felt his impatience quicken. Mrs. Burr spends quite a lot on clothes, sir, says Miss Rae; Miss Rae says, Mrs. Burr spent $508.15 last month, sir, and this month—

  “Things are lousy, Jen,” Slater said. “I’m not in a gay mood.”

  “How was it?”

  “Bad.” He imitated Leydecker’s voice, “It is the duty of local leaders of industry to improve their properties, to appeal to local bankers, if necessary, for funds to enhance… Oh, well, it was that way.”

  “Chris said you
saw Caxton.”

  “Refused,” Slater said. “A flat refusal.”

  “But last summer Caxton said—”

  Slater sighed. “Last summer, darling, L.E. was on the skids, and I was the fair-haired boy.”

  Only last summer, Caxton’s kindly green eyes had looked up approvingly at the city council meeting, shining while Slater shined: “Don’t think like losers!” Slater had shone, “Mr. Leydecker’s attempts to get new industry in here are like attempts to get rich old strangers to change their wills in your favor! We’re in the heart of the Finger Lakes, and we need to sell ourselves as a tourist attraction—sell our lakes, sell Cayuta, but don’t sell it down the river to outside industry!”

  “Winner” and “loser” were words Slater pounded in at council meetings, pounded in with his fist on the table, his eyes flashing, huge and powerful, compared to little Kenneth Leydecker, Jr., balding and prim, his frightened eyes peeping out through his gold-edged rimless glasses.

  Slater was the winner, hands down, in his perpetual battle with Leydecker. All of Leydecker’s proposals—for a new municipal airport to attract industry, for a new zoning law which would force the Burr plant from its center-town location, for this improvement and that one, were fought by Slater in council meetings, and defeated.

  Slater had only to remind Cayutians what had happened during the war years, when Leydecker Electric expanded via Stamford-Clyde, an outside industry, which shared contracts and labor with L.E., then pulled away leaving L.E. over-expanded and under-contracted, and leaving Cayuta an official “depressed area.” He had only to call attention to the fact that Burr Manufacturing Company, built with local capital and local brains, had never employed any but local people.

  Then, late last summer, the wind shifted. Oil wealth, a construction boom, and high temperatures in Kuwait, a Persian oil sheikdom, all worked in Kenneth Leydecker’s favor. He won a contract to produce 30,000 air conditioners for export to Kuwait. Leydecker Electric, for so long floundering and fishing for new industry, was on its feet. The wage scale in Cayuta for factory workers was up—up and beyond what Slater Burr could afford—and the town felt a new hum, an upsurge in spirit: L.E. was working nights, as well as double day shifts. Kenneth Leydecker no longer looked like a loser, and the Burr plant in center town, began looking exactly as Leydecker always said it did: like an eyesore.

  Jen said, “How about the zoning proposal?”

  “I’m afraid it’ll go through, Jen.”

  “Did you give them the arguments against it?”

  “My arguments sound pretty thin lately.”

  “Did you tell them it’d put B.M.C. out of business?”

  “That’s not news to anyone, Jen, and it wasn’t news to Leydecker tonight that I can’t swing a bank loan. He’s on the board of Cayuta Trust; he knows what he’s doing.”

  “I’m sorry you sound blue, darling.” And that was so like Jen, like her to tell him she was sorry, just as she might tell someone at the club she was sorry he had lost at tennis.

  “All right, I’ll meet you home.”

  “I’m so pleased! I was so bored, Slater! They’re all talking about bomb shelters over here. Is that all America can think about?”

  He supposed he was in for another evening of Europe versus America. Jen had spent two years in France, nine years ago. Life’s highlight for Jen, Slater thought derisively; what she would remember when she was an old woman. And Slater? Carrie’s face in the bottom of his martini glass now: No, she won’t remember her real highlight, Slater; it’s between you and me.

  “They’re your relatives, Jenny,” Slater sighed.

  “I never said they weren’t. They bore, bore, bore me! I wish we could go to Europe, Slater.”

  “I know… I wish it too.”

  “And they’re all eating! Peanuts, doughnuts, potato chips, just filling their faces. The fat Americans!”

  “Okay, okay,” Slater said tiredly; could he count 20 men through the windows, across at Leydecker’s? 30? “God hate America.”

  “Well, I do get bored, darling.”

  “It’s hard for an oriental like yourself to adjust,” said Slater.

  Jen giggled. “I may be an American, darling, but I’m not dead. Everyone here’s so dead!”

  “I’ll meet you at home, Jenny.”

  “Pick up some champagne, darling.”

  Live on the Left Bank on nothing, a loaf of bread, cheese—

  He said, “I thought we weren’t going to make anything special out of this commercial proposition—American Christmas.”

  “We’re exchanging gifts. We might as well have some champagne.”

  “Shall I get a tree? They’re selling white plastic trees in Woolworth’s.”

  “Yes, be sure to,” Jen giggled again. “God, don’t you wish we were in a little French cafe near the Seine, sipping wine quietly.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Jenny. That little French cafe would be just as hammed up with Christmas decorations as Boyson’s Cafe here on Genesee Street.”

  “But everything would be written in French, so I’d forgive it.”

  “Joyeux Noël,” Slater said. “Bonne nuit.”

  “I’ll see you at home, darling.”

  “Au revoir,” said Slater Burr.

  two

  Rich Boyson sat on a stool in the rear of his restaurant, waiting for Slater Burr to come out of the phone booth. Rich was not a localite in the true sense of the word. He had moved to Cayuta fourteen years ago, when B.M.C. was still the Stewart Company, and Leydecker Electric, affiliated with Stamford-Clyde, was the big industry in town… Even in those days, Leydecker and Slater Burr were fierce enemies, and Rich’s customers had soon filled him in on the reason.

  It was hard for Rich to imagine Slater poor, or working in the shipping department at Stewart—hard to think of him as a gangling kid without even a high school education, impossible to think of him as Fran Burr. (He had changed his name, after his marriage to Carrie.) But he was that, and he had been called Fran Burr, right through his teens.

  It was not difficult to imagine Kenneth Leydecker’s father keeping Slater’s father on a foreman’s salary, while he adopted all Roy Burr’s ideas for switches and connectors to improve L.E. equipment. Roy Burr had died of cancer at 48, his savings spent on his dying, the family in debt at his burial… No, if Kenneth Leydecker was a chip off the old block, it was not hard to imagine that… And anyway, that happened all the time. Rich’s own father had been a chemist, and Rich would like to have all the money his father’s ideas had netted Canadaigua Foods… but Slater Burr poor?

  Slater looked like the kind born to money. He was a good six four, one of those huge men with coal black hair and large dark eyes, sure and cool, with his checked caps and sports cars, and the distance between himself and other men, that made Rich call him Mr. Burr. He could walk into Rich’s place in khaki pants and a T-shirt, and still there would be something about him to tell Rich he was better-off than most of Rich’s customers. Not many of the better-off class came into Boyson’s, but Slater and Jen did, always by themselves. They were the kind Rich liked, the kind who really enjoyed their drinks, sat at the bar sipping martinis and talking as though they were two youngsters who had just met… The fact was, Jen Burr was a youngster, compared to Slater, but Rich sometimes thought of them as no different from the university kids, who came over weekends from Syracuse or Cornell… Together, they were like kids. Alone, Slater was friendly, but not a talker, not one to sit on a stool looking around either; quiet, studying the mirror, a real loner.

  The only thing Rich Boyson could remember about Carrie Burr was that she walked around Cayuta in pants, always with a cigarette dangling from her mouth. She was not a drinker, and during their marriage, Slater seldom came into Boyson’s, except for cigarettes and a fast one at the bar. No one really knew Carrie. She had gone to school outside Cayuta all her life, and she had married Slater the first summer she was home from college. She was tall like Slater, with
the same pitch-black hair, which spilled to her shoulders, straight and shining, and her face was not pleasant, because she seldom smiled, but it was a good face, Rich remembered… just very solemn, with brown eyes that seemed to look through a person.

  But Jen! Jen was like Slater’s buddy. Rich thought of it as having a wife who was a pal, as well as someone to cook the meals and raise the kids. Rich’s own wife was married to the Motorola television set in their bedroom. Oh, she had had her little fling years back, and Rich had broken Al Secora’s ribs because of it… but now her fling was played out on a 19” screen, marked out a week ahead on the TV Guide. When Rich got home at night and started to gossip about people who had been in the place, Francie could hardly tear her eyes from the Tonight Show. It worked out that Rich told her all about people like Slater and Jen, while she didn’t listen, then she told him all about Johnny Carson and Zsa Zsa Gabor, while he didn’t listen. Then side-by-side they went to sleep, each one feeling big-hearted about putting up with the other’s drivel.

  Sometimes Rich Boyson got fed up and told himself that if he were married to someone like Jen Burr… well, and he had to laugh… well, he would not be Rich Boyson, was all. He might be rich, but not Rich Boyson… He guessed Jen McKenzie Burr was the most beautiful woman in Cayuta, New York—hell, in the whole of Kantogee County! She was a little, very thin woman, with long yellow hair that hung straight and silk-like, skin like ivory, round deep blue eyes, dimples, and a snub nose. Rich thought of her as a little doll; that’s what she was, a little doll, full of fire and what-for, and she could drink big Slater Burr under an oversized banquet table.

  When Slater came out of the phone booth, Rich walked up to the front of the bar and pounded him on the back.

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Burr. Can I give you one on the house, for the Yuletide?”

  “Thanks, Rich, but I’ve got last-minute shopping to do.”

  “Wish Mrs. Burr a Merry Christmas for me.”

  “O we’ll be in during the holidays.”

  “Say, Mr. Burr,” Rich said. “Know who came in here to use the phone today?”