The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow [30]
and tdistance, but then he'd also tell me that I could expect him to ie out of real trouble as long as I was reasonably deserving. He liike to see my bubble-headed friends get me in dutch. Yes, he Eof duty toward me, and toward George too. I couldn't say ig hypocritical about George. are as hell there for a while when you just let Mama talk Sdn't say anything," I told him. "You know damn well I can't fch about the kid unless I quit school and take care of him. But ffla wants him home you should leave that up to her. And you Ih't have sat there and let her make a holy show of herself." ' |k might as well get it all at once as in installments." Simon lay i dark iron bedstead, brawny and blond. He spoke out strongly. 'the paused and took a calm touch of his broken tooth with his |. He seemed to have expected that I would light into him harder I did, and when I had said my sharpest words he went on to let sbt what I pretty well knew without being told. "She got you dead Site, Augie. You know you've been pretty damn sloppy. But any- The wouldn't have had the kid with us more than another year. It you were in there pitching, which you're not." SB, she thinks she's boss now." ft her think," he said. He cleared the passages of his head with Bid, short pull that had got to be the mark of his soberest moments Ipped the light switch with his foot. He began to read. |here wasn't much I could do after that. I couldn't any longer Hrledge Grandma to be the head of the family, and it was to t 53 Simon that some of the old authority became attached. I stayed in the room with him rather than go out and face Mama, who, when the dishes were done and the crumbs shaken off the cloth, would be more lying than sitting in her chair with the Prussian-spiked bulb emitting its glossy villain light through the head on the squashlike wens and bubbles and hard-grained paint of the walls. When she had a grief she didn't play it with any arts; she took straight off from her spirit. She made no fuss or noise nor was seen weeping, but in an extreme and terrible way seemed to be watching out the kitchen window, until you came close and saw the tear-strengthened color of her green eyes and of her pink face, her gap-toothed mouth; she laid her head on the wing of the chair sideways, never direct. When sick she was that way also. She climbed into bed in her gown, twisted her hair into braids to keep it from tangling, and had nothing to do with anyone until she felt able to stay on her feet. It was useless for us to come with the thermometer, for she refused to have it; she lay herself dumbly on the outcome of forces, without any work of mind, of which she was incapable. She had some original view on doom or recovery. Well, it was now decided about George, and, not reproaching anyone, she did her work while Grandma Lausch made speed to carry out her project. The old lady went down to the drugstore herself to phone Lubin, the caseworker. That in itself was significant, because she scarcely ever set foot in the street when snow had fallen after that icy Armistice Day when she had twisted her ankle.'Old people often suffered out their days with broken bones that couldn't mend, she observed. Besides, even if it were only for a block, she couldn't go in a housedress. It wasn't right. She had to get herself up and change from worsted stockings--actually golf hose held with snarled elastics--to silk, to black dress, put up her triple-circle coif and, looking mean, powder her face. Not caring how ungentle she looked to, us, she mounted her air-sweeping feathers with hat pins and, got up in the condition of ceremony, she went out with an aged quickness of anger, but as she walked down she still had to set both feet on each tread of the stairs. It was an election day, and crossed flags were hung over the polling places, burly party men were in the snow, breathing steam and flapping long sample ballots. School was closed, and I was available to accompany her, but she wouldn't have me. And half an hour later when I went out with the ash drawer of the stove I saw her on one