Bullet Park Read Free Page B

disappointments and their successes an immutable brand of common sense.
    When the peace that passes understanding was dispersed among them, the priest left the altar and muttered a prayer from the vestarium. The sounds of muttered prayer seemed to Nailles to have an organic antiquity; to fall on his ear like the grating sound of a wave. The acolyte extinguished the lights of the flesh and the spirit, Nailles finished up his devotions and went down the aisle behind the strangers.
    “We’re the Hammers,” the stranger said to the priest.
    Nailles did not think this funny, anticipating the fact that almost everyone else in the neighborhood would. How many hundreds or perhaps thousands of cocktail parties would they have to live through, side by side: Hammer and Nailles. Nailles claimed not to be a superstitious man but he did believe in the mysterious power of nomenclature. He believed, for example, that people named John and Mary never divorced. For better for worse, in madness and in saneness they seemed bound together for eternity by the simplicity of their names. They might loath and despise one another, quarrel, weep and commit mayhem, but they were not free to divorce. Tom, Dick and Harry could go to Reno on a whim, but nothing short of death could separate John and Mary. How much worse was Hammer and Nailles.
    “Welcome to Christ’s Church,” the priest was exclaiming.“Welcome to Bullet Park. Father Frisbee did write to me about you.” Father Frisbee had probably not gone into their finances, but Father Ransome, at a glance, guessed them to be good for at least five hundred a year; although he had experienced many disappointments. The Follansbees, for instance, who kept saddle horses and went to Europe every summer, dropped a dollar into the plate whenever they came to church and let it go at that. On top of this they very likely claimed a tax exemption of a thousand. Live and learn. “Mr. and Mrs. Hammer,” he said, “may I present your neighbor Mr. Nailles.” He laughed.
    The look they exchanged was deeply curious and in some ways hostile. The stranger evidently anticipated the unwanted union that the sameness of their names would enforce in such a place. Nailles, who detested genealogy, crests, idle investigations into the elegance of time gone, spoke from a conflict of feeling when he said: “Our name used to be de Noailles.”
    “I’ve never looked into the history of our name,” said the stranger. He could have been unfriendly. He took his wife’s arm and left the church.
    “Tell me,” the priest asked Nailles, “what’s happened about Tony and the confirmation class.”
    “He’s playing varsity basketball,” said Nailles quite loudly. The Hammers were still within hearing. “He’s the only member of his form on the varsity squad and I hate to ask him to give it up.”
    “Oh well,” said Father Ransome, “the bishop will comeagain in the spring but I suppose he’ll be playing baseball then.”
    “I’m afraid you’re right,” said Nailles, yielding his place to Mrs. Trencham, who hinted at a curtsy and would probably have kissed the priest’s ring had he worn one, but his fingers were bare.
    Driving away from church Nailles turned on his windshield wiper although the rain had let up. The reason for this was that (at the time of which I’m writing) society had become so automative and nomadic that nomadic signals or means of communication had been established by the use of headlights, parking lights, signal lights and windshield wipers. The evening paper described the issues involved and the suitable signals. Hang the child murderer. (Headlights.) Reduce the state income tax. (Parking lights.) Abolish the secret police. (Emergency signal.) The diocesan bishop had suggested that churchgoers turn on their windshield wipers to communicate their faith in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. He drove on through a neighborhood where all the houses stood on acre