I'll Call Every Monday

CHAPTER I

MONDAY IS A BIG DAY ON AN INSURANCE debit. Monday is the day when the housewives hang out their wash, lie to every bill collector in town — and are thankful that they didn’t get themselves higher than a kite over the week-end.

Come back tonight, she says, not bothering to hold the robe close around her big belly. You’re too early. My husband doesn’t get paid until tonight.

So you go back at seven that evening and she’s got her face on and half a snoot-full.

Geeze, I’m sorry! she says. You get the quick impression that she must have a hell of a good foundation up there, because you couldn’t see those things that morning. You’re too late. You’ll have to come back next Monday.

You give her a big smile, call her a bitch under your breath and wander off down the street.

Your company should be like the Metropolitan, another character tells you, shouting over the screams of her sick kid. They’ve got nurses that go around — for nothin’. You guys ain’t got nothin’.

You crawl up a pair of rickety stairs and wear your knuckles out on a door. Pretty soon an old guy in a flannel shirt decides to come out and talk to you.

Gilson? he asks. Naw. Gilson lives next door — the other place just like this one. Me, I got my insurance with the Rock of Gibralter.

Those first few weeks on a debit are tough for a new man. You wonder how in Christ’s name you’ll ever get four hundred people, and where they live, all straightened out.

We’ve been trying for two years to have a baby, a good-looking red-headed number tells you very confidentially. Does your company have any service for something like that?

Who wouldn’t be able to take care of a request for that kind of policyholder service? You could do it, without any trouble at all, and her old man wouldn’t have to know. But you’re real polite and you let it slide by. You’re satisfied to get out of there with a twenty-five-cent-a-week application.

By nine o’clock on Monday night you’ve had it in the debit business. You stagger into your room — they sell shots down at the corner mill, double ones for thirty-five — balance out your collections for the day, drop into bed and die for about seven hours.

Tuesday is confession.

You had a dollar and ten cents industrial increase last week, Nicky. That’s not bad.

Thanks.

Your first quarter will break for about ninety bucks. How does that sound?

Okay.

George Martin leaned back in his chair and gave me a big grin. George was about forty-five, heavy-set, and with a big red face. He had been a manager with Northern for about six years. After three months in the business I had the distinct impression that George, after his death, would be committed to the ground only after he’d signed up his pallbearers for some straight life or endowment coverage.

You just keep on going this way, George told me, and everything will be fine.

I’ll pick up speed, I said.

There’s just one thing I wanted to ask you, George said. I guess I did, before, but I’m doing it again. You plan on staying in Devans quite a while, don’t you, Nicky?

It was funny, but I hadn’t thought very much about that before. There was no real reason for me to stay, except that I liked the town, the crooked, shaded streets and the way people weren’t afraid to speak when they met you. The only possible reason was that it was summer and I had no other place to go.

Yeah, I said. I’ll be around here for a spell.

George lit a cigarette and looked out of the window. The scene across the way was something fairly good. A blonde cutie worked in the real estate office over there and she never seemed to be particular what she did or who saw her doing it.

You got any relatives around here, Nicky?

No relatives — anywhere. At least, none that count.

How come you ever landed in Devans, then?

I thought about all those pictures I had looked at in New York, and the ads I had read.

I was going to buy a grocery store here.

Which one?

I don’t remember the name, I said. It’s on Lake Street.

Near the park?

Yeah.

Must have been the Quality Market.

I don’t know. Maybe it was.

How come you didn’t buy it, Nicky?

All of this was none of his business, of course, but it didn’t do any harm to swap words with the boss.

There were a couple of things, I said.

George nodded and grinned at the blonde.

It’s tough for an outsider to get anything financed around here, he said. These banks are so far in the past they think they’re still doing business with the Indians. You almost have to have your money lined up before you land, or —

It wasn’t that.

Just two things, I thought. The books for the store hadn’t looked right and the place had been a mess inside. Besides, the fellow had been working days at the Donna Bray Cologne factory in an effort to make his money and his clerk meet head-on every Saturday. I’d been tempted, all right, because I’d always wanted to own a business and pay my income tax quarterly. But standing there in that store — watching a couple of customers pick up some bread, seeing the dirty kids with pennies after candy — I’d thought about those hot nights in Venezuela, the roaring winds of Iceland and the still, dark cold of Greenland where I’d earned my money the tough way. After that, I’d been scared to even talk to the guy about it. The next day I’d gone up to the cologne factory and got a coolie’s job on the night shift. I’d quit there the same day that Bill Klein had failed in his attempt to sell me a retirement policy. He’d sold me on the idea of becoming an insurance agent, instead. I still had better than eleven grand sleeping in that bank in Brooklyn.

Well, keep plugging, George said, stubbing out his cigarette. And send Anderson in when you go out, will you?

Okay.

I went back into the agents’ room. The guys were getting ready to leave for the day’s session with the public. Anderson, a big guy of around fifty, was just putting on his coat.

Go in and meet your master, I told him. He’s got your right arm in there.

Anderson replaced his coat on the back of the chair.

Let us pray, he said as he went into George’s office.

There were only five agents in Devans who worked for Northern, and we had just a small set of offices on the fourth floor of one of the savings and loan-if-they-will buildings. Devans had a population of about fifteen thousand and there were eight or nine Met agents, six or seven Prudential and one or two Equitable and New York Life men working the city and the outlying territory. But there seemed to be enough for everybody. Maybe I felt like that because part of my debit was out in the country, where the collections were good and the people thrifty.

Well, Jerry Hansen said, folding his book. Time for coffee.

Jerry was fresh out of college, married to a doctor’s daughter and strictly country club.

I’ve got some lapses to chase down, Dell Walters said. I wish to God that people would either pay their insurance or swindle the company.

How do you swindle an insurance company? I wanted to know.

By dropping dead, he said.

Dell was one of those family men who slept and ate arrears and advance payments. He was the type of a guy who would get an attack of ulcers and die about two weeks before retirement date. I’ll spring, Bill Klein said. I got a ten last night.

Bill wasn’t very tall, about up to my shoulders, but broad and rugged appearing. He was wearing a neat gray suit, the same suit he’d been wearing the first time I’d seen him up at the factory. He had a homely, good-natured face and a ready grin.

I wish I had the District Account, Arch Lenord said, lighting his pipe. No collections to make. Just sell. Marie does all your work, Bill.

Sure.

Marie was the office girl and cashier. She was about twenty, not built too good but with a quiet, efficient face that would have spoiled any other physical attraction she might have had.

How about you, Nicky? Coffee?

Later, I said. I’m going up into the sticks this morning.

Nicky likes to feel that new car under him, Bill said. That’s some car, Nicky.

The Buick’s all right, I told him.

If I’d known you could afford a wagon like that, I’d have sold you that retirement contract, he said, laughing. Nuts to getting you in the racket. Get your money and run — that’s where I fouled up.

You couldn’t have done it, I said. And you know it.

Bill and I got into it once in a while, arguing about the fact that I didn’t have any coverage on myself. I hadn’t even taken out the group life when Northern had waved it at me. But I wasn’t alone in that. Hardly any of the fellows had enough to get them under the sod. All the best prospects are insurance men.

I worked out a good plan for you, Bill insisted.

I didn’t say you didn’t.

There ought to be someone you want to protect, Nicky.

There is, I said. But I can’t remember her name. She was just a chippie who lived off Lexington, but she was fun.

Aw, cut it out, Nicky. He picked up his briefcase and slapped me in the ribs. I was only thinking about your folks, that’s all. I never hear you say anything about them.

And you won’t, I promised him.

If you live near New York maybe you know where Port Jervis is, sitting at the junction of three states, in the middle of a summer resort area that dies off like the grass after Labor Day. There are some good people in Port, and some lousy people. My mother was one of the good ones. My old man was one of the stinkers. He still is. The bad of it never goes to seed.

When World War II started, I went into the army as any normal guy from a pretty standard family equipped with a home that had a mortgage on it, a four-year-old car, and a following of bill collectors who wandered around periodically to see how things were going. I was in France, helping Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill shake hands with a character by the name of Stalin, when I got the letter from my mother telling me about the old man and the twenty-one-year-old girl from the restaurant. She said that the girl was about ready to calf and that the building and loan had decided to put the house in the bad-luck ledger. I was still in France when the hospital wrote about my mother’s bills, saying that they didn’t know where Mr. Weaver was, and would I please remit? I started remitting and kept it up until we hit Germany and the Russians went wild buying watches and cigarettes and anything else we could tear loose. I sent the money back with a buddy to mail to the undertaker. Later, the buddy wrote me that he had visited Port, discovered the undertaker’s daughter to be highly capable, and had straightened things out. He also told me that my old man was back working and was trying to figure out if he was responsible for the third that was long over-due.

I hadn’t gone back to Port after getting out of service. It had seemed to be only another way of wasting carfare. Instead, I had worked on some overseas projects, making more money as a radio man than most bankers could make even though they kept two sets of books.

After all these years in the business, I can’t do better than a Ford, Dell Walters complained. The first week Nicky shows up he breaks out with a new Roadmaster.

I merely glanced at Dell. He could stop his crying and nobody would miss it.

Nicky sleeps alone, Bill said. There must be a difference.

I’ve got two nice kids.

That’s what I mean, Bill said.

We left the office together and crowded into the small elevator.

Where’s Anderson? Jerry wanted to know.

Smoking the peace pipe, I said. He hasn’t had an industrial app in over two weeks.

So what? He had a five in ordinary, that I know of.

That stuff doesn’t count, Bill said, getting off. You have to draw blood when you tangle with a policyholder. The company makes more money off of industrial. I guess it’s because the lapse rate is higher.

There should be a law, I said.

There is, Bill said as we walked through the main corridor to the street. Only it isn’t for us. Insurance men make their own-as they go along. It’s better that way.

The rest of the fellows went across the street to the soda fountain. I cut through an alley to the parking lot where I’d left my car.

You guys have got the racket, the attendant told me. You and the iceman.

Who’s top dog, Andy?

He grinned and rubbed a dirty hand across his face. We went through this same routine every morning. It didn’t improve with practice.

You guys, he said. Your stuff won’t melt while you’re inside a house.

Andy knew what he was talking about.

CHAPTER II

I DROVE DOWN TO JONES STREET AND rescued three suits from the cleaners. They looked like they had been finished off with a carpet beater and a mop.

That’s fine, I told the set of teeth that held up a dress. All I’ve got to do, now, is move back on the farm.

Don’t worry about it, she said sweetly. No one would ever suspect that you’d left.

I went out and threw the suits on the back seat of the car. Then I drove over to Ridge Avenue and up to the end of the street where I’d taken a room in a big, quiet tourist home. As a matter of fact, it was too quiet. The place was operated by a retired school teacher and most of her roomers were teachers, plus a couple of old bags who jockeyed books in the local library and a guy who misused the state’s time in the unemployment office. My rent was up on Thursday and if I could find anything else with a ceiling and some walls I was going to pull out of the wake. A man can go just so far before he has to turn back.

I parked in front of the house and went inside. There was a young dining-room table in the hall where the old lady always left any mail or stuff like that for her roomers. I went over and looked and found a folded piece of paper with my name written on it. I ripped the thing open and grinned. The old girl must have had her back up or her corset tied too tight that morning. She always called me Nicky, in a sort of a fuzzy tone that gave me the idea that she wished that I was older. The note was addressed to Mr. Nicholas Weaver.

It said:

8:25 (a.m.)

Some people by the name of Schofield called. They live in Pine Valley, off the Turnpike. You left your card in their door. They’d like to have you call soon.

Miss Aurelia Hankins

P.S. Your rent is almost due again.

I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. I remembered the place, a nice white Cape Cod with a rolling front lawn and a lake down in the valley below. I’d stopped there once, cold canvassing, and found no one home. Generally, you don’t expect to get a response to a card left in the crack of a door and, if you do, it seldom amounted to anything. But I’d planned on going out to Pine Valley that day, anyway, to talk with a hotel owner who’d asked me to stop back. I had to pass this place on the way out there.

I went up the stairs. It was an old house but the stairs were sound and the carpet thick. There was never any noise at night from people coming in or going out, though I’d hardly have been aware of it because my room was way in the rear.

A couple of days after moving in I’d bought an accordion, but I’d only had it out of the case a couple of times. I’d never taken a music lesson in my life and the only notes I knew about were the thirty-day kind. But I’d heard those accordions up in Iceland and other places, and, to me, there was something beautiful about the way they sounded. I’d thought about looking around for a teacher who might give me some pointers, but I’d been too busy selling insurance to bother with it.

Standing there at the top of the stairs I had the idea that I wouldn’t have to look far for a teacher. Somebody was down there in my room playing that accordion like crazy.

I went down to the room and slid inside. And then I stopped. I just stood there, not moving. I couldn’t move.

She didn’t see me. She sat over on the bed squeezing the accordion and not knowing I was there. I tried to think of the tune but I couldn’t. Just looking at her gave me plenty of other things to think about.

It’s hard to tell how big a person is when they’re sitting down, but I got the impression that she was short because I could see a lot of one leg. It was straight and firm and rounded and not too long from the knee down to her foot. She had the accordion in her lap and this had pulled her dress up. Her face was sort of turned away, maybe thinking about something that the music brought back to her. I could see that her hair was dark and pulled over the sides of her head into a bun in back.

She kept pumping on the accordion and it kept moving around and her dress kept going up higher. She looked real good sitting low on the bed. I was getting ready to go over there when she saw me. She gasped and moved quickly, trying to catch the accordion.

Oh, my God! she said. The accordion got away