The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy

HERB’S WORK at the clam-packing plant was noticed from the start; he seemed to have a talent for culling, and he was so dexterous that he came to be regarded with the kind of awe and envy that athletes inspire when they perform feats so far beyond the capabilities of the average person that they seem by performing them to be enlarging the aspirations of the species, to be outlining a new bulge alo...

HERB AND LORNA moved in the next day, but, while they were unpacking, Herb began to feel that he’d been unfair, that he’d forced Lorna to share, or at least to try to share, his enthusiasm for the apartment. He began to feel that he should have left the apartment hunting to her, that she should have been the one to choose the place where she would live, and that, if she had been the one to choose,...

“REMEMBER,” said Herb, “you have to wear the blindfold.”     “All right,” said Lorna.     Actually, she liked the idea of wearing a blindfold, liked the mystery, looked forward to the surprise, loved Herb’s obvious delight over the apartment he’d found, took pleasure from his pleasure, and took pleasure from the fact (and there was no doubt, could be no doubt, that it was a fact) that he wanted to...

THE APARTMENT. Well, the apartment might not have seemed much better than the job. Herb found it while he was walking along Bolotomy Road, on his way to the area in the southernmost part of Babbington, along the bay, where, he had learned, most of the messier work was done. He intended to wander through the area and see what the businesses looked like, see whether there were any jobs to be had. He...

IN THE DAYS that followed, Herb looked for work, and Lorna looked for a place to live. As it happened, Lorna found a job, and Herb found an apartment.     The job that Lorna found, through a conversation with a woman in a drug store, was a job for Herb. It wasn’t much of a job. It was a job as a culler in the Babbington Clam packing plant. Cullers picked through the clams, sorting them by size and...

AFTER LORNA AND HERB were settled in their room at the River Sound, they went out for a walk. Through the rain and the dark, they walked in the direction in which Lorna supposed the ocean to be. They walked along River Sound Road, then along Bolotomy Road, until they reached the Municipal Dock. Storm-driven waves pounded the dock, and spray washed over the bulkheads. Lorna cried, “The ocean!”     ...

     Dan inspected Herb. Behind Dan, a door opened, and a squat man in coveralls emerged from it. Herb smiled and nodded at him. “You related to the Feasters?” Dan asked.     “No,” said Herb. “The name’s Piper, Herb Piper. I don’t have any relatives here — I don’t even know anyone here.” He extended his hand. Neither Dan nor Speedy made a move to shake it.     “The wife?” asked Dan.     “No, no. W...

IT TOOK MORE than two months for Herb to dispose of the coarse goods Ben gave him, develop eleven new couples (and how he yearned for Lorna while he worked, how much his imagination was enlarged by thinking of her), sell his list of Five-Foot-Shelf customers, sell his old Studebaker Four, and buy a new-to-him Studebaker Series 19 “Light Six.” Lorna carved coarse goods for Luther while she waited f...

IN BOSTON, Herb told his uncle Ben what he had in mind. “Here’s what I have in mind, Uncle Ben,” he said. “I’ll make eleven more prototypes. That’ll give you a dozen models. Okay?”     “Okay,” said Ben. “I’ll work out an arrangement with the people in Chacallit so that you get a certain percentage of the sales.”     “I need money now, Uncle Ben.”     “Maybe I can get them to advance you some money...

“CHACALLIT is about one hundred seventy-eight and a half miles from Boston,” said Lorna, looking up from the map that she had spread out on the kitchen table.     “ ‘About’?” said Herb. He poked her. She bumped him with her hip.     “About,” she said. “Here. Let’s try something.” From a drawer, she took a ball of string. She stretched a length of it from Boston to Chacallit. She held the Boston en...

Chapter 8 In Which Herb and Lorna Move to Babbington, New York THE FIRE at the Serenity Ballroom was caused, an investigation disclosed, not by Herb and Lorna’s ardor but by a kitchen accident. According to May Castle, Lorna considered the burning of the ballroom the symbolic end of her girlhood, the end of her life as a child:      Oh, yes, it was the burning point of her life. Oh! I didn’t mean...

     Lorna, holding Herb’s hand to steady herself, stepped into the rowboat. The first notes drifted out over the lake, just as Herb pushed off from the dock, and — what luck! — “Lake Serenity Serenade” turned out to be lilting and beautiful, and the sax section of the Triple-A Orchestra outdid itself. It was a great stroke of luck, one of those happy accidents we discredit when we hear an account...

     “This is an honor!” said Bump. He grabbed Herb’s hand in both of his and began pumping it. “An honor!” He raised Herb’s arm in the air and said, turning to the crowd, “This is Herb Piper!” There wasn’t much of a reaction to this announcement: puzzled looks, some mumbled speculation. “Herb Piper!” Bump said again, a look of incredulity on his face. “The guy from Boston who fixed those goddamne...

WHEN HERB AND LORNA walked into the ballroom, everyone fell silent, and everyone turned to stare.     Herb had no difficulty identifying the particular young man. Andy Proctor hopped up from the table where he was sitting with a group of friends and admirers (a couple of whom were, to be accurate, neither friends nor admirers but young men and women who were broke and out of work and entertained h...

“IT’S A WONDERFUL NIGHT, isn’t it?” said Lorna. “It’s one of those nights when sweet scents are in the air.”     “That might be my hair tonic,” said Herb. They were in Herb’s car, heading for the Serenity Ballroom. Herb wound his window down. “I might’ve put too much on.”     “Herrrrrb — ” said Lorna, drawing his name out in a way that meant, “Don’t be silly!” (This “Herrrrrb — ” would in years to...

LORNA WAS SURPRISED and suspicious when, on the day after her reunion with Herb, Luther asked her to come to his office at the mill, but her curiosity was aroused by Luther’s conciliatory attitude. She agreed to go because she wanted to find out what Luther wanted from her.     “Lorna!” said Luther, rising from his desk and rushing to greet her. “How are you?” He took her hands in his and looked h...

WHEN HERB AND BEN checked in at the Chacallit House, Ben, full of eagerness and confidence, certain of success, sure of the value of what he had to offer, went off to see Luther at once. Herb, who was not as confident, not at all certain of success in his undertaking, hesitated. He hadn’t told Lorna that he was coming. He’d tried to write, but he hadn’t been able to find a way to say the things th...

THE NEXT MORNING, Herb went to see his uncle Ben. “Uncle Ben,” he said, “I want to go back to Chacallit.”     “Good!” said Ben. “So do I. I’ve got an idea that is going to revolutionize the coarse-goods business.”     Herb looked at his uncle with the wariness he’d inherited from his mother. “This isn’t going to lose you money, is it, Uncle Ben?”     Benjamin colored, thrust his hands into his poc...

“I GUESS you want me to tell you some more about the war,” said Andrew. He and Lorna were sitting on the sofa in the Hubers’ parlor, as they had on many evenings since Andrew’s return. Richard was standing, filling his pipe. Lena was sitting in her accustomed chair, knitting. Before she quite realized what she was doing, Lena let a sigh escape from her. When she discovered herself sighing, she tri...

     To help move matters along, Mrs. Mills left Herb and Alice alone whenever she could arrange it. After several evenings of petting that ended with Alice’s whispering, “We mustn’t, my darling, we mustn’t,” Alice apparently succumbed to the heat of passion. At the point in their petting where (her blouse off, her bra undone, so much smooth, pale skin glowing in the dark, Herb’s shirt open, his b...

“I WANT YOU to tell me about the war,” said Alice. She was sitting beside Herb on the sofa in the living room of the Millses’ apartment, over Alice’s father’s saloon. The Millses’ place wasn’t much grander than the Pipers’, but Alice and her mother put a lot of effort into making it “cozy,” and Herb enjoyed the shabby clutter they had created.     “I don’t have much to tell,” said Herb. He looked...

WHEN ANDREW PROCTOR returned to Chacallit, more than two thousand people were waiting on the platform at the railroad station to greet him. He was Chacallit’s hero. He had, single-handedly, taken a hill, saved his captain, and captured a German officer, but his exploits were already being exaggerated, so that in the conversation of Chacallit, he had, single-handedly, taken a hill, a ridge, a bridg...

HERB HAD PLANNED, as soon as things settled down, to go to the tobacco shop, where there was a telephone, and call Lorna, but before he could get out, Ben’s wife, Herb’s aunt Louise, arrived with his cousins and a friend of his cousins’, Alice Mills. Alice was sixteen, a girl of striking beauty, with wide eyes, a lively, laughing mouth, and waves of fine golden hair that cascaded over her shoulder...

Chapter 7 In Which Herb and Lorna Ignite the Flame of Passion HERB’S UNCLE BEN met his train when Herb returned to Boston. Millie Piper couldn’t trust herself to meet her son in public. She was determined not to cry, absolutely determined, but she knew that she would cry, and she didn’t want to cry over him with everyone watching — if she was going to cry and make a fuss, and she was afraid that s...

LORNA DID go to work in the suspender fitting section. It doesn’t seem likely to me that she actually feared Luther’s spilling the beans about her erotica work if she didn’t do what he wanted. She must have known that their standoff was stable. It’s more likely that she took a place on the main floor, where an American flag was mounted on each of the machines, at each of the benches and tables, be...