1975 - Night of the Juggler Read Online Free
Author: William P. McGivern
have to clean up after your ownselves tonight, Mr. Boyd.” Her white teeth flashed in a smile of relish against the gloom of the long room, which at this hour was lighted only with a pair of table lamps.
“Food’s in the oven, and the plates are out, so you’ll have to serve yourself, too.”
“Very well, Carrie,” Luther Boyd said. “And Kate?”
“She’s in the bathtub, but first she did some homework before she used up all that was left of that pheasant in a sandwich.”
“We’ve still got six or eight brace in the freezer, Carrie.”
“I know, but it seems strange.”
Whatever Carrie’s point was, Luther Boyd thought with a certain weary humor, she was certainly determined to make it.
“What’s strange about it?” he asked her, trapped by their relationship—which was blended of what: sympathy, courtesy, guilt?—into asking a question when he didn’t give one goddamn about the answer.
Barbara had never appreciated his frequent need to get back to barracks and training camps. In those simple environments, one could cut through just such knots of supererogatory sensitivities. One told a captain what to do, and the captain did it. Or he’d better have a goddamned good reason for not doing it. But here Luther Boyd stood pleasantly tired after six hours in an office and two hours on a squash racquets’ court, fencing with a gloomy black lady’s hurt feelings, judging without interest what finesse might incline this tiny, boring conflict toward a sensible and, he hoped, speedy conclusion.
“Well, the strange thing is, Mr. Boyd, is a young girl, I mean, a baby child, sitting around in the afternoon watching TV and eating pheasant sandwiches.”
There it was, the rebuke. Now presumably Carrie Snow felt better, having got that off her chest. Luther Boyd glanced at his watch.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to hurry, Mrs. Snow, if you’re going to make that bus.”
This was a nice, tactical stroke, but it made Luther Boyd feel irritated with himself, because that had been his rebuke to her, a dismissal, with all that meant to her crotchety but basically kindly sensitivities.
Luther Boyd disliked insolence, not because it rankled him in any personal sense, but because he correctly assayed it as a surrogate for anger, an emotion he respected, particularly if it resulted in positive and constructive action. Yet stern as he was in his judgments on everyone around him, including himself, he was fair enough to understand that anger was a luxury that certain blacks and other misbegotten creatures of the world could savor only in the silence of their souls.
Mrs. Snow looked uneasily past him toward the kitchen.
“I could catch the next bus, Mr. Boyd—it don’t matter that much—and put away the things after dinner.”
He saw the white flags of surrender in her fluttering eyes. (“Thank you kindly, General Lee. It’s a privilege to accept such a magnificent example of the swordmaker’s art.”) What else could he do but accept her offer of service? He paid her well, and he and Barbara and Kate treated her well; but if they denied her a sense of usefulness, what did the rest of it mean?
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Snow,” Luther Boyd said.
And so, his tactical energies expended in trivia, Luther Boyd went toward his study, while Mrs. Snow, her dignity flying like plumes, strode importantly into the kitchen.
Kate Boyd, who liked to think of herself as a curious observer rather than as a busybody, made it a habit to take her bath with the door open a crack so that she missed nothing that went on in the apartment, and when she heard her father’s footsteps going toward his study, she sang out, “Daddy, is that you?”
“Yes, honey. I’ll see you after your bath. . . .”
“But I’ve got some absolutely dreadful news.”
He opened the door of the bathroom and looked in on her. The air was steamy and warm and fragrant. Kate was up to her chin in bubbles, and whorls of thick, creamy
“Food’s in the oven, and the plates are out, so you’ll have to serve yourself, too.”
“Very well, Carrie,” Luther Boyd said. “And Kate?”
“She’s in the bathtub, but first she did some homework before she used up all that was left of that pheasant in a sandwich.”
“We’ve still got six or eight brace in the freezer, Carrie.”
“I know, but it seems strange.”
Whatever Carrie’s point was, Luther Boyd thought with a certain weary humor, she was certainly determined to make it.
“What’s strange about it?” he asked her, trapped by their relationship—which was blended of what: sympathy, courtesy, guilt?—into asking a question when he didn’t give one goddamn about the answer.
Barbara had never appreciated his frequent need to get back to barracks and training camps. In those simple environments, one could cut through just such knots of supererogatory sensitivities. One told a captain what to do, and the captain did it. Or he’d better have a goddamned good reason for not doing it. But here Luther Boyd stood pleasantly tired after six hours in an office and two hours on a squash racquets’ court, fencing with a gloomy black lady’s hurt feelings, judging without interest what finesse might incline this tiny, boring conflict toward a sensible and, he hoped, speedy conclusion.
“Well, the strange thing is, Mr. Boyd, is a young girl, I mean, a baby child, sitting around in the afternoon watching TV and eating pheasant sandwiches.”
There it was, the rebuke. Now presumably Carrie Snow felt better, having got that off her chest. Luther Boyd glanced at his watch.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to hurry, Mrs. Snow, if you’re going to make that bus.”
This was a nice, tactical stroke, but it made Luther Boyd feel irritated with himself, because that had been his rebuke to her, a dismissal, with all that meant to her crotchety but basically kindly sensitivities.
Luther Boyd disliked insolence, not because it rankled him in any personal sense, but because he correctly assayed it as a surrogate for anger, an emotion he respected, particularly if it resulted in positive and constructive action. Yet stern as he was in his judgments on everyone around him, including himself, he was fair enough to understand that anger was a luxury that certain blacks and other misbegotten creatures of the world could savor only in the silence of their souls.
Mrs. Snow looked uneasily past him toward the kitchen.
“I could catch the next bus, Mr. Boyd—it don’t matter that much—and put away the things after dinner.”
He saw the white flags of surrender in her fluttering eyes. (“Thank you kindly, General Lee. It’s a privilege to accept such a magnificent example of the swordmaker’s art.”) What else could he do but accept her offer of service? He paid her well, and he and Barbara and Kate treated her well; but if they denied her a sense of usefulness, what did the rest of it mean?
“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. Snow,” Luther Boyd said.
And so, his tactical energies expended in trivia, Luther Boyd went toward his study, while Mrs. Snow, her dignity flying like plumes, strode importantly into the kitchen.
Kate Boyd, who liked to think of herself as a curious observer rather than as a busybody, made it a habit to take her bath with the door open a crack so that she missed nothing that went on in the apartment, and when she heard her father’s footsteps going toward his study, she sang out, “Daddy, is that you?”
“Yes, honey. I’ll see you after your bath. . . .”
“But I’ve got some absolutely dreadful news.”
He opened the door of the bathroom and looked in on her. The air was steamy and warm and fragrant. Kate was up to her chin in bubbles, and whorls of thick, creamy
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