Wait Until Spring Bandini by John Fante Page B

would say, ‘Charge it.’
    Monday afternoon, and still no Bandini, and that grocery bill! She could never forget it. Like a tireless ghost it filled the winter days with dread.
    Next door to the Bandini house was Mr Craik’s grocery store. In the early years of his marriage Bandini had opened a credit business with Mr Craik. At first he managed to keep the bills paid. But as the children grew older and hungrier, as bad year followed bad year, the grocery bill whizzed into crazy figures. Every year since his marriage things got worse for Svevo Bandini. Money! After fifteen years of marriage Bandini had so many bills that even Federico knew he had no intention or opportunity to pay them.
    But the grocery bill harassed him. Owing Mr Craik a hundred dollars, he paid fifty – if he had it. Owing two hundred, he paid seventy-five – if he had it. So it was with all the debts of Svevo Bandini. There was no mystery about them. There were no hidden motives, no desire to cheat in their non-payment. No budget could solve them. No planned economy could alter them. It was very simple: the Bandini family used up more money than he earned. He knew his only escape lay in a streak of good luck. His tireless presumptionthat such good luck was coming forestalled his complete desertion and kept him from blowing out his brains. He constantly threatened both, but did neither. Maria did not know how to threaten. It was not in her nature.
    But Mr Craik the grocer complained unceasingly. He never quite trusted Bandini. If the Bandini family had not lived next door to his store, where he could keep his eye on it, and if he had not felt that ultimately he would receive at least most of the money owed him, he would not have allowed further credit. He sympathized with Maria and pitied her with that cold pity small businessmen show to the poor as a class, and with that frigid self-defensive apathy toward individual members of it. Christ, he had bills to pay too.
    Now that the Bandini account was so high – and it rose by leaps throughout each winter – he abused Maria, even insulted her. He knew that she herself was honest to the point of childish innocence, but that did not seem relevant when she came to the store to increase the account. Just like she owned the place! He was there to sell groceries, not give them away. He dealt in merchandise, not feelings. Money was owed him. He was allowing her additional credit. His demands for money were in vain. The only thing to do was keep after her until he got it. Under the circumstances, his attitude was the best he could possibly muster.
    Maria had to coax herself to a pitch of inspired audacity in order to face him each day. Bandini paid no attention to her mortification at the hands of Mr Craik.
    Charge it, Mr Craik. Charge it.
    All afternoon and until an hour before dinner Maria walked the house, waiting for that desperate inspiration so necessary for a trip to the store. She went to the windowand sat with hands in her apron pockets, one fist around her rosary – waiting. She had done it before, only two days ago, Saturday, and the day before that, all the days before that, spring, summer, winter, year in, year out. But now her courage slept from overuse and would not rise. She couldn’t go to that store again, face that man.
    From the window, through the pale winter evening, she saw Arturo across the street with a gang of neighborhood kids. They were involved in a snowball fight in the empty lot. She opened the door.
    ‘Arturo!’
    She called him because he was the oldest. He saw her standing in the doorway. It was a white darkness. Deep shadows crept fast across the milky snow. The street lamps burned coldly, a cold glow in a colder haze. An automobile passed, its tire chains clanging dismally.
    ‘Arturo!’
    He knew what she wanted. In disgust he clinched his teeth. He knew she wanted him to go to the store. She was a yellow-belly, just plain yellow, passing the buck to him, afraid of Craik.