Stories of John Cheever (1979 Pulitzer Prize), The - John Cheever [27]
The conductor who came through the car taking tickets after Albany noticed the Malloys, and something about their appearance worried him. As he came back through the car, he stopped at their seat and talked with them, first about Mildred-Rose and then about their destination.
"You people going to New York for the first time?" he asked.
"Yes," Evarts said.
"Going down to see the sights?"
"Oh, no," Alice said. "We're going on business."
"Looking for a job?" the conductor asked.
"Oh, no," Alice said. "Tell him, Evarts."
"Well, it really isn't a job," Evarts said. "I'm not looking for a job, I mean. I mean, I sort of have a job." His manner was friendly and simple and he told his story enthusiastically, for the conductor was the first stranger to ask for it. "I was in the Army, you see, and then, when I got out of the Army, I went back home and began driving the bus again. I'm a night bus driver. But I didn't like it. I kept getting stomach aches, and it hurt my eyes, driving at night, so in my spare time, during the afternoons, I began to write this play. Now, out on Route 7, near Wentworth, where we live, there's this old woman named Mama Finelli, who has a gas station and a snake farm. She's a very salty and haunting old character, and so I decided to write this play about her. She has all these salty and haunting sayings. Well, I wrote this first act—and then Tracey Murchison, the producer, comes out from New York to give a lecture at the Women's Club about the problems of the theatre. Well, Alice went to this lecture, and when he was complaining, when Murchison was complaining about the lack of young playwrights, Alice raises her hand and she tells Murchison that her husband is a young playwright and will he read his play. Didn't you, Alice?"
"Yes," Alice said.
"Well, he hems and haws," Evarts said. "Murchison hems and haws, but Alice pins him down, because all these other people are listening, and when he finishes his lecture, she goes right up on the platform and she gives him the play—she's got it in her pocketbook. Well, then she goes back to his hotel with him and she sits right beside him until he's read the play—the first act, that is. That's all I've written. Well in this play there's a part he wants for his wife, Madge Beatty, right off. I guess you know who Madge Beatty is. So you know what he does then? He sits right down and he writes out a check for thirty-five dollars and he says for me and Alice to come to New York! So we take all our money out of the savings bank and we burn our bridges and here we are."
"Well, I guess there's lots of money in it," the conductor said. Then he wished the Malloys luck and walked away.
Evarts wanted to take the suitcases down at Poughkeepsie and again at Harmon, but Alice checked each place against the timetable and made him wait. Neither of them had seen New York before, and they watched its approaches greedily, for Wentworth was a dismal town and even the slums of Manhattan looked wonderful to them that afternoon. When the train plunged into the darkness beneath Park Avenue, Alice felt that she was surrounded by the inventions of giants and she roused Mildred Rose and tied the little girl's bonnet with trembling fingers.
As the Malloys stepped from the train, Alice noticed that the paving, deep in the station, had a frosty glitter, and she wondered if diamonds had been ground into the concrete. She forbade Evarts to ask directions. "If they find out we're green, they'll fleece us," she whispered. They wandered through the marble waiting room, following the noise of traffic and klaxons as if it were the bidding of life. Alice had studied a map of New York, and when they left the station, she knew which direction