It was Frank Dunning who was making the ladies laugh. The resemblance to the janitor who had taken my GED English course was close enough to be eerie. He was Harry to the life, except this version’s hair was almost completely black instead of almost all gray, and the sweet, slightly puzzled smile had been replaced by a raffish, razzle-dazzle grin. It was no wonder the ladies were all aflutter. Even Bevvie-on-the-levee thought he was the cat’s meow, and why not? She might only be twelve or thirteen, but she was female, and Frank Dunning was a charmer. He knew it, too. There had to be reasons for the flowers of Derry womanhood to spend their husbands’ paychecks at the downtown market instead of at the slightly cheaper A amp;P, and one of them was right here. Mr. Dunning was handsome, Mr. Dunning wore spandy-clean clean whites (slightly bloodstained at the cuffs, but he was a butcher, after all), Mr. Dunning wore a stylish white hat that looked like a cross between a chef’s toque and an artist’s beret. It hung down to just above one eyebrow. A fashion statement, by God.
All in all, Mr. Frank Dunning, with his rosy, clean-shaven cheeks and his immaculately barbered black hair, was God’s gift to the Little Woman. As I strolled toward him, he tied off a package of meat with a length of string drawn from a roll on a spindle beside his scale and wrote the price on it with a flourish of his black marker. He handed it to a lady of about fifty summers who was wearing a housedress with big pink roses blooming on it, seamed nylons, and a schoolgirl blush.
“There you are, Mrs. Levesque, one pound of German bologna, sliced thin.” He leaned confidentially over the counter, close enough so that Mrs. Levesque (and the other ladies) would be able to whiff on the entrancing aroma of his cologne. Was it Aqua Velva, Fred Toomey’s brand? I thought not. I thought a fascinator like Frank Dunning would go for something a little more expensive. “Do you know the problem with German bologna?”
“No,” she said, dragging it out a little so it became Noo-oo. The other ladies twittered in anticipation.
Dunning’s eyes flicked briefly to me and saw nothing to interest him. When he looked back at Mrs. Levesque, they once more picked up their patented twinkle.
“An hour after you eat some, you’re hungry for power.”
I’m not sure all the ladies got it, but they all shrieked with appreciation. Dunning sent Mrs. Levesque happily on her way, and as I passed out of hearing, he was turning his attention to a Mrs. Bowie. Who would, I was sure, be equally happy to receive it.
He’s a nice man. Always joking around and stuff.
But the nice man had cold eyes. When interacting with his fascinated lady-harem, they had been blue. But when he turned his attention to me-however briefly-I could have sworn that they turned gray, the color of water beneath a sky from which snow will soon fall.
The market closed at 6:00 P.M., and when I left with my few items, it was only twenty past five. There was a U-Needa-Lunch on Witcham Street, just around the corner. I ordered a hamburger, a fountain Coke, and a piece of chocolate pie. The pie was excellent-real chocolate, real cream. It filled my mouth the way Frank Anicetti’s root beer had. I dawdled as long as I could, then strolled down to the canal, where there were some benches. There was also a sightline-narrow but adequate-to the Center Street Market. I was full but ate one of my oranges anyway, casting bits of peel over the cement embankment and watching the water carry them away.
Promptly at six, the lights in the market’s big front windows went out. By quarter past, the last of the ladies had exited, toting their carry-alls either up Up-Mile Hill or clustering at one of those phone poles with the painted white stripe. A bus marked ROUNDABOUT ONE FARE came along and scooped them up. At quarter to seven, the market employees began leaving. The last two to exit were Mr. Currie, the manager, and Dunning. They shook hands and parted, Currie going up the alley between the market and the shoe store next to it, probably to get his car, and Dunning to the bus stop.
By then there were only two other people there and I didn’t want to join them. Thanks to the one-way traffic pattern in the Low Town, I didn’t have to. I walked to another white-painted pole, this one handy to The Strand (where the current double feature was Machine-Gun Kelly and Reform School Girl; the marquee promised BLAZING ACTION), and waited with some working joes who were talking about possible World Series matchups. I could have told them plenty about that, but kept my mouth shut.
