The Crossroads Read online

  He sighed. “I guess not, damn it. I have the feeling that if I could only find the key to the kid. Something to wake him up. He just … drifts. He doesn’t give a damn. Any suggestions?”

  “Not about Pete. He defeats me. But I think you better tell John Clear to find a manager for the Pantry.”

  “I wish he was another Leo,” Chip Drovek said.

  They both smiled in the same way, a tender exasperation. “Ole Leo,” she said softly.

  “He holds this organization together, by God!” Chip said.

  “Don’t make fun. He was in here yesterday, scared to death of the agency thing. I’m supposed to help him cool you off on it. He had the usual batch of figures clutched in his hot little hand. He said you’d been avoiding him. Please be more patient with him, Chip.”

  “Okay. Sure. But honest to God, sometimes he …”

  “I know.”

  “So damn … earnest.”

  “I know.”

  “But Pete has got it. Somewhere. If we can unlock it. God, how we could use that mind of his if we could … motivate the kid.”

  Chip stood up. “I’m going to take Papa his check … after I soothe Leo. And tell him the plans.”

  “Give him my love. Tell him I’ll be up tomorrow to say hello.”

  “Okay, Lady Joan.”

  He walked out. She didn’t hear the splutter of the Vespa so she knew he had gone into the office next door. To be nice to Leo and pick up the check for Papa. She realized that in spite of her intentions she had neither found nor made an opening to speak to Chip about the girl in the gift shop. Anyway, it was none of her business. He would be careful. And he did need … someone. We Droveks make the fine marriages. Clara, the lush. Jack, the drone. And dear little swivel-hipped Sylvia, Pete’s problem. Leo did the best of us, with his devoted Betty. Maybe I did second best. I know what Jack isn’t. And I know what he is, and need what he is. Turn me to a sickening tub of mush with one touch of his hand. Even right now, after these ten years of him. Back to work, Joanie girl.

  TWO

  It was almost ten o’clock when Charles “Chip” Drovek putted north on the red Vespa up beyond the Starlight Club to the crossover through the medial strip that was opposite the other corporation-owned gas station on the east side and the Crossroads Bowladrome on the west side of the divided highway. When there was a gap in traffic he cut through into the bowladrome parking lot, across the lot, and onto the narrow unpaved road that led west between the bowladrome and the drive-in movie, and up the gentle slope for over a mile to the white hillside cottage where Papa lived alone.

  Papa, in work pants and his old red sweater, had been working in the vegetable garden behind the house when he heard the motor scooter. He came around the house, grinning, his brown head bald and speckled in the sunlight, wiping the dirt from his hands on the thighs of the work pants.

  He was not a big man, but at seventy-one he still had a wide tough look about him, an invincible hardiness. The years had scored his peasant face so deeply he had a simian look about him. In 1908, when he was twenty, Anton Drovek had come over from Poland to work in the steel mills and get rich. He had worked in Youngstown for five years, learning rudimentary English, saving every penny, hating the heat and noise and dirt and confusion. He had quit and moved south, looking, doing farm work, keeping secret the sweat-stiff money belt around his tough waist.

  Ten miles south of Walterburg he found a country crossroads, ten acres of land, a dilapidated, boarded-up store, a tumbledown barn. He bought it. The farmers in the neighborhood didn’t want to deal with the crazy foreigner. You couldn’t understand him. Big grin on his face all the time. Fool for work. Up before dawn. Hammering away there at night by lamplight. Bought a wagon and a mule, brought stock in from Walterburg. All-day trip up and back. Tidied the place up. Trimmed it up. Find the dang fool out there sometimes sweeping the road. Grinning at you like a fool, calling you by name, saying it so you could hardly understand it yourself. Farming that rundown land too. Farming it pretty good. Raising stuff people around here don’t bother much with. Selling it in the little store.

  By the time one year had passed, they had begun to trade with him. He was unfailingly cheerful and helpful and generous. More automobiles on the road all the time. Drovek put in a gas pump. Hired the Palmer kid to help him out. Hardly ever spent a dime on himself. Every time he got a few dollars ahead, he’d buy more of that worn-out land along the road. People were glad to sell it to him. It was worthless.

  The Crossroads Market. He hadn’t thought that name up. That McCarthy girl had. Martha. Great big girl. She took a shine to him. Old Brad McCarthy couldn’t stop her. She was over twenty-one. That was the fourth year he’d had the store. That time Drovek took sick, after he’d built the addition, she ran the store for him, took care of him too. Folks talked some. Married him in nineteen-seventeen. Had the first kid a year later. Boy they named Charles, after her grandfather. Wedding like to make you laugh, her standing up there a whole half head taller than Drovek, him grinning so broad you coulda tied it in back. She was a bear for work, just like him. Strong girl. They built that first mess of cabins themselves, her using a hammer and saw right up to about a month before she had Leo. Building cabins and buying more land too. That Drovek was crazy for land.

  Between when she had Leo and when she had the girl, Joan, about four years later, was when Route 71 got widened. Made three lanes out of it, and Drovek lost the store. Got paid for it. Had to tear it down. He rebuilt further back and put in more cabins. About then was when people were after him to buy some of the road frontage. Willing to pay good money. He wouldn’t sell an inch. And when they tried to buy from others they found out Drovek had it under option. They waited for him to miss out on some of those options, but somehow he scraped the money together and bought it all. Resoled his own shoes and wore mended britches, but he picked up his options.

  After Joan was born was when he put in the little restaurant across the road from the cabins. Got a fellow from Walterburg to run it. The last kid didn’t come along until Martha was about forty. Had a hard time with that last kid, Pete, and she wasn’t ever right after that. Died three years later when the eldest, Charles—Chip they were calling him by then—was seventeen.

  Drovek just plain quit, right then and there. Sit in a rocking chair all day, not even rocking. That grin was gone. Owed money, too. Didn’t give a damn. But that was when Chip took hold. Turned from a boy into a man fast. Held it together. And brought the old man up out of Martha’s grave and got him working again. Finally got him grinning again.

  Now, of course, it’s a hell of a big operation. A corporation. Stuff spread all over hell and gone, up and down the highway on that land old Papa Drovek bought. Wornout, no-good land. They’ve never sold an inch of it. Never will, I guess, not the way they’re going. The last time they widened the road, Chip had that cottage moved all the way up onto the hill back there. That’s where the old man wanted it. From up there he can see the whole shooting match. Martha died in that cottage. The last two kids, Joan and Pete, were born in that cottage. It was hardly worth moving, but them Droveks didn’t want it tore down.

  Papa and Chip shook hands and Chip bent slightly to kiss the weathered cheek. And then they went and sat on the edge of the front porch, legs dangling. It was part of the ritual. In bad weather they sat inside where they could look out the window. The cottage was a little over a mile away and about two hundred feet higher than the highway. They could see the bright streams of traffic, glittering and shimmering in the sun, the big tractor-trailers looking like dime-store toys. All the operations of the Crossroads Corporation were in clear view. Chip did not hand the check over immediately. That, too, was part of the ritual.

  Chip pointed. “Papa, you see the open space between where the office and those small stores are, and the bowladrome?”

  “Something new for there, Charlie?”

  “What would you think about an automobile agency? One of them in Walterbur
g wants to move all the way down here. They’re getting cramped.”

  “Is a roadside business, selling cars?”

  “Not really. But the character of the area is changing, Papa. The city is moving down toward us. That Crossroads Shopping Center isn’t a roadside business either.” They looked northeast at the big L-shaped building enclosing the glittering acres of parking area. Suburban developments dotted the rolling country beyond the highway.

  “No junk, Charlie? No big lots with rusty cars?”

  “His used-car lot will be five miles north, closer to town.”

  “Don’t like it junky, Charlie. How much it cost build him what he wants?”

  “I’ve been over the figures with the contractor. We can do it for a hundred and ninety thousand.”

  “Hoooo! Is lot of money.”

  “It won’t be all our money. Most of it will be the bank’s. Construction loan. We pay it off over twenty years. He takes a thirty-year lease. With an escalator clause to take care of any jump in taxes and insurance. After allowing for maintenance and upkeep, we’ll pay off the loan installments and still make three per cent on the total cost, or fifteen per cent on the part we put up in cash. During the final ten years we should be making twelve per cent on the whole deal, about twenty-two thousand a year.”

  “You tink is smart, Charlie?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  The old man grinned and nudged him. “We do it! You pooty smart, Charlie.”

  “You’re the smart one in the family. Here’s what you get for being smart.” He took the folded check out of his shirt pocket and handed it to the old man.

  He opened it. “Hoooo! Is tax taken out?”

  “It’s free and clear, Papa.”

  “When you go to bank, Charlie?”

  Chip felt a fond irritation. He knew what the old man would do. Dress up in his good dark suit with the shiny seat and elbows, place his hat squarely on top of his head and ride into the city with him. There he would cash the check, put far too small an amount of money into his pocket, and take the balance into the safety deposit vaults and put it in his box.

  “I’ve got to go in Monday, be there by ten. I’ll pick you up about nine-thirty.”

  “Good, Charlie.”

  “Papa, why don’t you ever listen to me about that money? You could invest it and it would be making more money for you. And you ought to spend more on yourself.”

  “Is all I need right here, Charlie. With money you do tree tings. Buy land, or build something or save it, yes? Land is too rich and I got nutting to build any more.”

  “Investing it is saving it.”

  “Is not money to touch,” the old man said, setting his jaw.

  Chip gave up. “How much money have you got in that box anyway?”

  The old man looked at him with a glint of mischief. “Is pooty full.”

  “It must be. How much?”

  “To much to count it, Charlie. Maybe someday you need money fast. Maybe I loan it. Maybe not. High interests to you, big-shot president Charlie.”

  “You’re a mean old man sometimes.”

  “Sure. Charlie, why Nancy doesn’t come? Leo, Betty, their kids come.” He sighed. “Is not much interest talking to Leo. All the time those figures, figures.”

  “Joan said she’s going to stop by tomorrow.”

  “Good. How about Nancy?”

  “She’s coming with Joan,” Chip said, making that decision.

  “Come, good,” the old man said, lighting up. His smile faded. “Peter, he is doing good now?”

  “Just fine, Papa.”

  “Is young, you know. Takes time.”

  Chip wanted to tell the old man Pete was twenty-eight, and remind the old man what his eldest son was doing at twenty-eight.

  “Pete is good boy, Charlie. You find out sometime.”

  “I told you he’s doing fine, Papa.”

  “Is pretty building to look at, this automobile place?”

  “It’ll be handsome, Papa. Very modern. Nice roof line. It’ll look good from here, and good from the highway. I’ve got to run, Papa.”

  “Careful now on that little red ting.”

  “Sure, Papa.” He straddled the scooter, looked at his father. “When it gets too lonesome up here, there’s room down in my place. You know that.”

  “Lonesome! Who is lonesome? Say, you tell that Mister John Clear not send so much foods up here. Is waste!”

  “All right, Papa.”

  “Trow away some, sometimes.”

  “All right, Papa.”

  He rode down the long hill to the highway, dust kicking up behind him. Talk to Clear about the Pantry. Check with Joan and Nancy about going together to see Papa. But first …

  He rode down to the little row of shops, went into the sundries store and bought cigarettes. And then, casually, self-consciously, he strolled up to the gift shop. The little bell jangled on the door when he went in. Jeana was waiting on a woman with a petulant face and a whining voice. She gave him one quick glance and just before he turned away to look blindly at porcelain horses on a shelf, he saw the way her eyes widened, the blush that touched her throat and cheek.

  Finally the woman bought a nest of Japanese trays. It seemed to take Jeana forever to ring up the sale and wrap the package. The door jingled as the customer left.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Her mouth seemed to tremble. Her lovely eyes had dancing lights in them. “Some new merchandise came in that you might like to see, Mr. Drovek. I was just unwrapping it.”

  She walked ahead of him out into the storeroom, walking tautly, demurely, without her usual fluid young grace. As soon as they were in the storeroom she whirled and came tiptoe tall into his arms, whispering, “Darling, darling, darling.” They kissed with a searching hunger, and she blended herself sweetly against him with the long shivering sighings of a woman in love. He felt all the long warm textures of her back, kneading the warmths of her with blunt strong hands, clean fragrance of her hair against his nostrils. Dizzied by her, so aware of his need of her, he turned her almost roughly, forced her back against a hip-high pile of packing cases. For crazy moments she responded to him, moving and straining against him, then pushed against his chest in half-panic, saying, “No, no, no, darling!”

  He moved back from her, breathing deeply. Her eyes were round and wide, her lips parted, hair disordered, lipstick smeared. “How mad can we get?” she asked. “Honestly!”

  “Sorry. I guess.”

  “Probably not as sorry as we should be. Or could be, if we get that far out of hand.” She moved over to a mirror, pulled a light chain. She took a comb from the shelf and, with her back to him, began to pull it through her light fine hair. “Very animal,” she said with a trace of smugness.

  He moved beside her and put his hand on the dainty flexuous incurve of her waist, felt her shiver again under his touch.

  “Darling,” she said and pushed his hand away. “I’m puffing like a toy furnace. I’ve got to face the public.”

  He leaned against the wall and watched her repair her mouth. “Lovely,” he said.

  She made a face at him and sobered instantly, “Chip, darling.”

  “What now?”

  “Maybe this is all it is. Just this wonderful hunger. And being so good together.”

  “You know better than that.”

  “All the rest is rationalization. It’s just an animal thing. The moment you’re near me.”

  “Rare moments. Now we better start thinking of when and how.”

  “I know how,” she said primly.

  “Provocative wench. You know what I mean.”

  “You’ve turned me into a very bawdy shameless creature.”

  “Debauched you. Sure. When?”

  She put her hands lightly on his shoulders, looked up into his eyes. “Isn’t that up to you, sire?”

  “Tomorrow night. I’ve got to go into town for a meeting. I’ll get away early. She’ll be stoned by then. I’ll stop
on the way back. About ten.”

  “Tennish anyone?” she said with gamin grin.

  As she stood there, her hands on his shoulders, he put his hands against her sides, against the graceful rib cage above her waist, then moved his thumbs up to brush the tips of her breasts, back and forth. He saw her eyes come unfocused and her mouth soften into slackness, her knees give slightly. She pushed herself back away from him. “God, Chip! God!” she whispered hoarsely. “What’s happening to me?”

  “Love.”

  “So easy to say. Little bitty short word. Park the car beyond the shopping center. Walk two blocks. Tap on my door. And I bound up, palpitating. Christ, Chip! Is it love?” Tears smeared her eyes. “Do we have to be such h-horrible sneaks?”

  “Jeana. Jeana baby.”

  “It’s dirty, Chip. A lot of it.”

  “Tomorrow night.”

  She lifted her shoulders, dropped them. “Oh, sure. Sure.” The bell jingled. She patted her hair, glanced down at him, gave him a sharp vixen grin and whispered, “You aren’t quite ready to meet the public, darling.” She walked out, exaggerating the swing of her hips until she was within sight of the customer.

  “For a little girl?” he heard her say. “Let me think … how about …”

  Drovek walked over to a pile of cartons in the corner of the storeroom, tested their firmness with the heel of his hand, sat gingerly on them, lighted a cigarette, and tried to think consecutively about those emotional quandaries which do not lend themselves to any assault of logic. He had married Clara sixteen years ago. It was difficult to remember how he had felt toward her then. She was a Walterburg girl and had been hired as dining-room hostess in the old Motor Hotel Restaurant, the one they had torn down ten years ago. She had been quiet, composed, efficient, with a nice, somewhat shy smile. She walked well, wore clothes well, and remembered people’s names.

  He guessed that it had all happened because he felt ready to be married, and had decided on Clara Dellen, and set about convincing both of them that it was love. Clara’s emotional immaturity was no armor against this determined sentimental assault. He was twenty-five and she was twenty-one. She was an only child, an orphan, and had lived for the past ten years in an old house in Walterburg with a great-aunt and -uncle whose only two sons were grown, married, and, like their father, had become Methodist ministers. From the age of eleven she had been brought up in an atmosphere of righteous poverty, prayer, and the muted social activities of the church. She was told to believe that she was very fortunate. Her father, during one of his prolonged benders, had jumped out the sixth-floor window of a cheap hotel in Atlanta in an effort to avoid the imaginary monsters who sat tall around his bed, staring at him.