Mary And The Giant

"Well," the elderly gentleman began, but then the ice cream came, and he found himself involved in removing wrappers and giving out money.

"Good-bye," Mary Anne said to the child, and patted her on the head. Then, with a wave of her hand, she started in the direction of the slum area and Elm Street.

As always, she located the house by the ragged palm tree growing in the front yard. Holding tight to the banister, she mounted the stairs. The door, of course, was locked. She got out her key and made her entrance.

Nothing stirred. In the living room stood a card table heaped with beer bottles and ashtrays. A chair, one leg broken, was over turned; she righted it. On the piano, among the clothes and newspapers, was a plate of sandwich crumbs; something small dived out of sight as she approached.

In the kitchen the remains of a meal were drying on the table. A man's hand-painted necktie lay over the back of a chair, and a pajama top was on the floor beside the table; with it was a cigarette lighter-Tweany's-and two wire coat hangers. The sink was filled with dishes, and sacks of garbage spilled out from below.

Removing her coat, Mary Anne wandered into the bedroom. The shades were still down and the room was amber dark, slightly damp with the presence of sheets. There, in the gloom, she began listlessly removing her clothing. She folded her skirt and blouse across the bed and, opening the closet, rummaged among the mothball-clouded fabrics.

Soon she had what she wanted: women's jeans and a heavy checked shirt that reached to her knees as she buttoned it around her. In a pair of moccasins, she padded over to the windows and let up the shades. For the other rooms she did the same, lifting, in addition, the windows she could budge.

First, before anything else, she washed the dishes. After that came scrubbing down the wooden drainboard with steel wool and soap. Rivulets of grime dripped from her bare arms as she worked; pausing, she pushed her hair from her eyes, rested, and then searched the cupboards for rags. In the closet she found a heap of clean shirts; she ripped them up, filled a bucket with soapy water, and began scrubbing the kitchen floor.

When that was done, she got a broom and swept down the cobwebs from the walls and ceiling. Bits of soot rained on the newly scrubbed floor; panting, she halted and examined the situation. Of course she should have done the ceiling first, but it was too late now.

She gathered up the garbage and made her way downstairs to the backyard. The can was full; she heaped her armload on top and started back. Cans and bottles lay everywhere; in the weeds under her foot a light bulb burst, sending fragments of glass flying. Wearily, she climbed the stairs, glad to be away from the shrub-sized weeds; there was no telling what lived in the wet boards and litter.

Now she began dragging out the decrepit vacuum cleaner. Clouds of dust rolled from it as she snapped it on; she spread out newspapers and located the catch that opened it. A vast ball of dust bloomed in her face, and she scrambled back miserably. It was just too damn much. It wasn't worth it.

Through a blur of exhaustion she surveyed what she had accomplished. Virtually nothing. How could she put in order the corruption of years? It was too late, and it had been too late as long as she had been alive.

Giving up, she forced the vacuum cleaner together and carried it back to its place in the closet.

The hell with Tweany's pigsty. The hell, she thought, with Tweany. Let him clean up his own mess. She went into the bedroom and began searching the dresser for clean sheets and blankets. The dirty sheets she threw out into the hall, stumbling as she did so, and then began turning the mattress.

When she had finished making the bed, she smoothed a coverlet over it and threw herself down. She kicked off her moccasins, stretched out, and closed her eyes. It was peaceful and quiet. The hell with you, Carleton Tweany, she thought again. Paul is right: you are a jerk. A great big grinning jerk. But, she thought, that isn't all. Not at all it isn't all. Daddy, she thought, you could have done a lot better by me, but what the hell, who ever has?

She had come to a dead end. Belief in Tweany was no longer possible. She couldn't go on pretending he was what she wanted him to be: a great, kindly man whom she could count on. He had let her fall back into her old fear and isolation.

Thinking that, she fell asleep.

At two o'clock in the afternoon the stairs shook with the sound of people; a moment later the door burst open and Carleton Tweany, his arm around Beth, appeared.

"Jesus," Beth said, wrinkling her nose. "What's all the dust?" She halted at the pile of dirty sheets lying in the hall. "What's going on?"

"Somebody's been here," Tweany grumbled, letting go of her and peering into the living room. "Probably Mary Anne; she shows up all the time."

"Does she have a key?"