The House on Alexandrine

Chapter 12

GUNTHER TOOK DUANE to Eastern Market on Saturday morning. He had some friends living on a farm south of Flint who came to the market each Saturday to sell their produce: honey, jams and jellies, relishes and winter squash. Since they were in contact with a number of other communal farms in Michigan, Gunther suggested they mightknow something of April. Corbin doubted that Gunther really thought this, but he, too, had begun to go out of his way to help Duane for fear he would stop believing. Corbin came along to do some shopping. Isaac came because he was cheerful and George because he was gloomy. Eastern Market lay east of the downtown section on Russell north of Gratiot. Besides farmers selling their produce, there were neighboring shops where one could buy freshly killed rabbits, geese, chickens, ducks and even goat. Other shops sold cheese, dried fruit, dried mushrooms, nuts, baked flat bread, olives and spices from all over the world. The market sold everything that could be legally grown. Children roamed around chewing on stalks of sugar cane. Several years before in an attempt to calm people's fears about downtown Detroit, Eastern Market and the surrounding shops had been repainted in bright colors and murals. Shops put up multicolored striped awnings. The eighteen blue awnings on the second floor of the Rocky Peanut Co. showed pictures of lollipops, pistachios, candy canes, a whole variety of candy and nuts. Gratiot Central Market had a procession of massive apples and oranges on its white walls. On the wall of a bank was a huge steer made out of vegetables. The market itself was T-shaped. Over the main entrance was painted an orange chicken on a yellow background. One side entrance showed an orange bull with twelve-foot horns, while the other had a pink pig flanked 135 1 3 6 T H E H O U S E O N A L E X A N D R I N E by six piglets on a blue background. All the animals had blue eyelashes and looked like a talented adult's conception of what a talented child might paint. Corbin parked and they all climbed out of his VW. Duane looked around, impressed. "See what we've been saving for you?" said Isaac cheerfully. Panhandling had gone well that week, primarily because he had gone back downtown . He thought it would be safe as long as he didn't go near the bus or train stations. Instead, he concentrated on the big stores, working a few minutes before each. George's only comment about the murals was that he was sure some painter had fallen off a ladder and broken his neck. Louise had gone home to Kalamazoo on Friday. Without her, George acted like a lost dog on a busy street. She had made the trip because she wouldn't be going home for Thanksgiving when she and George meant to have a dinner for their friends in the house. But George couldn't stand being by himself and had been pestering one person after another. He was unshaven and his hair was matted. In contrast, Isaac looked his neatest with his white hair and moustache perfectly combed, his khaki pants and blue workshirt carefully pressed. He wore his black string tie and resembled an elderly gunfighter. Gunther had on his suit of blue denim. Duane was impressed by the live fowl in wooden cages and the dead and defeathered fowl hanging in rows by their feet. The crowded sidewalk was covered with white and gray feathers. Isaac pointed to a row of chickens. "The reason they leave the heads on," he told Duane, "is so you can see if the chicken's any good. You can tell a good chicken by its pleasant expression." "That's pretty honest," said Duane. "No, there's trickery even here." "How d'you mean?" "It's hard to make a chicken laugh when it knows you mean to cut its throat. You have to tickle them half to death." "I'll tickle you half to death," said Duane. After a while, Gunther led them into the market to search for his friends. There were crowds before each stand, poking vegetables, sniffing flowers, tasting bits of cheese, haggling over prices. It was hard not to be constantly bumping into people. Once Corbin was nearly crippled by a small black child peeling an orange. Another time Duane was almost run down by an...