“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I almost died, myself. If you hadn’t come, I don’t know what I would have done. I went clear down, in that water.”
“I yelled at you, but you was already in it.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen to the car,”
“It’ll be all right soon as it dries out.”
“You think so?”
“Just got water in it, that’s all.”
“I hope that’s all.”
“Some rain!”
“It’s awful, and it’s going to get worse. I had the radio on in the car. They’re warning people. Over in Hildalgo they took everybody out. Half the town’s washed away.”
“Yeah, I seen them.”
“You were in Hildalgo?”
“Yeah….What you talking about? This is Hildalgo.”
“This is Hildalgo?”
“That’s what it says on the sign at the station.”
“Oh, my! I thought Hildalgo was on the other road.”
“Well? So it’s Hildalgo.”
“But there’s nobody here. They took them all away.”
“O.K. Then it’s us.”
“Suppose this washes away?”
“Till it does, we got a fire.”
She got up, holding the robe tightly around her, and pulled a sawbuck over to the fire. On it, he noticed for the first time, were her sweater, stockings, and skirt. She must have taken them off while he was down in the car. She looked around.
“Are those your things over there? Don’t you want me to move them closer to the fire, so they’ll dry?”
“I’ll do it.”
The sight of her absurdly small things had made him suddenly aware of her as a person, and he was afraid to let her move his denims to the fire for fear that in the heat they would stink. He got up, pulled the pile of tar paper to the fire for her to sit on. Then he took the denims off the sawbuck and went back with them to the kitchen. The fixtures were in, though caked with grit, and on his previous tour of the place he had seen a bucket and some soap. He dumped the denims on the floor, filled the bucket with water, carried it to where she was. By poking with a piece of flooring he made a place for it on the fire, and while it was heating, studied her.
She wasn’t a pretty girl exactly. She was small, with sandy hair, and freckles on her nose. But she had a friendly smile, and she wasn’t bawling at her plight. Indeed, she seemed to take it more philosophically than he did. He took her to be about his own age.
“What’s your name?”
“Flora. Flora Hilton…. It’s really Dora, but they all began calling me Dumb Dora, so I changed it.”
“Yes, I guess that was bad.”
“What’s yours?”
“Jack. Jack Schwab.”
“You come from California?”
“Pennsylvania. I—kind of travel around.”
“Hitchhike?”
“Sometimes. Other times I ride the freights.”
“I didn’t think you talked like California.”
“What you doing out in this storm?”
“I went over to my uncle’s. I went over there last night, to stay till Monday. But when it started to rain I thought I better get back. It wasn’t so bad over where he lives, and I didn’t know it was going to be like this. They’ve got no radio or anything. But then, when I turned the car radio on, I found out. I still thought I could make it, though. I thought I was on the main road. I didn’t know I was coming through Hildalgo.”
“Well, they’ll be coming for you. The cops, or somebody. We’ll see them when they find the car.”
“I don’t know if they’ll be coming for me.”
“Oh, they will.”
“My father, he don’t even know I started out, and my uncle, he probably thinks I’m home by now.”
“Then we got it to ourselves.”
“Sure looks like it.”
The water was steaming by now. He wrapped the hot bucket handle in tar paper, lifted it off the fire, and went back to the kitchen with it. First washing out the sink, then using a piece of tar paper as a stopper, he soaped the denims and washed them. The water turned so black he felt a sense of shame. He put them through two or three waters, wrung them dry. The last of the hot water he saved for the shorts he had on. With a quick glance toward the front of the house, he stepped out of them, washed them, wrung them out. Then he spread them, to step back into them. They were no wetter than when he took them off, but he hated the idea of having them touch him. However, they were hot from the water, and felt unexpectedly pleasant when he buttoned them up.
Back at the fire, he draped the denims on the sawbuck, beside her things, to dry.
“Well, Flora, nice climate you got.”
“Sunny California! It can rain harder here than any place on earth. Well, you know what they say. We only have two kinds of weather in California, magnificent and unusual.”
“I’ll say it’s unusual.”
“Just listen to that rain come down.”
“What do you do with yourself, Flora?”
“Me? Oh, I work. I got a job in a drive-in.”
“Slinging hot dogs, hey?”
“I wish you’d talk about something else.”
“A hot dog sure would go good now, wouldn’t it?”
“I was the one that played dumb this morning. They wanted me to wait for breakfast, but I was in such a hurry to get away I wouldn’t listen to them. I haven’t had anything to eat all day.”
“Breakfast? Say, that’s a laugh.”
“Haven’t you had anything to eat either?”
“I haven’t et a breakfast in so long I’ve forgot what it tastes like. By the time they get around to me it’s always dinnertime, and even then, when they get to me, sometimes they close the window in my face.”
“I guess it’s hard, hitchhiking and—”
“Flora! Are we the couple of dopes!”
“What’s the matter, Jack?”
“Talking about hot dogs and breakfast. That store! There’s enough grub in there to feed an army!”
“You mean—just take it?”
“You think it’s going to walk over here and ask us to eat it? Come on! Here’s where we eat!”
When he seized the largest of the carpenter’s chisels and the hammer, she still sat there, watching him, and didn’t follow when he went outside. He splashed around to the rear of the store, drove the chisel into the crack of the door, pulled. Something snapped, and he pushed the door open. He waited a moment, the rain pouring on him from the roof, for the sound of the burglar alarm, but he heard nothing. He groped for the light switch, found it, snapped it, but nothing happened. If all wires were down in the storm, that might explain the silent burglar alarm. He began to grope his way toward the shelves. Suddenly he felt her beside him, there in the murk.
“If you’ve got the nerve, I have.”
She was looking square into his eyes, and he felt a throb of excitement.
“The worst they can do is put us in jail. Well—I been there before, haven’t I? Plenty of times—but I’m still here.”
He turned to the shelves again, didn’t see her look at him queerly, hesitate, and start to leave before deciding to follow him. His hand touched something and he gave an exclamation.
“What is it, Jack?”
“Matches! Now we’re coming.”
Lighting matches, poking and peering, they located the canned goods section.
“Here’s soup. My, Jack, that’ll be good!”
“O.K. on soup.”
“What kind do you like?
“Any kind. So it’s got meat in it.”
“Mulligatawny?”
“Take two. Small size, so they’ll heat quick.”
“Peas?”
“O.K.”
She set the cans on the counter, but he continued searching, and presently yelled:
“Got it, Flora, got it! I knew it had to be there!”
&nb
sp; “What is it, Jack?”
“Chicken! Canned chicken! Just look at it!”
He found currant jelly, found instant coffee, condensed milk, a package of lump sugar, found cigarettes.
“O.K., Flora. Anything else you want?”
“I can’t think of anything else, Jack.”
“Let’s go.”
When they got back to the house again, it was dark. He put more wood on the fire, went back to the kitchen, filled the bucket again. When he returned, to put it on the fire, he noticed she had put on her stockings, sweater, and skirt. He felt his own denims. They were dry. He put them on. But when he went to put on his shoes his feet recoiled from their cold dampness. He let them lie, sat down, and pulled the robe over his feet. She started to laugh.
“Wonder what we’re going to eat off of?”
“We’ll soon fix that.”
He found the saw, found a piece of smooth board, sawed off two squares. “How’s that?”
“Fine. Just like plates.”
“Here’s a couple of chisels for forks.”
“We sure do help ourselves.”
“If you don’t help yourself, nobody’ll do it for you.”
When the water began to steam, they dropped the cans in—the big can of chicken shaped like a flatiron first, the others on top of it. They sat side by side and watched. After a while they fished out the soup, and he took a chisel and hammer and neatly excised the tops. “Take it easy, Flora. Watch you don’t cut your lip.”
They put the cans to their mouths, drank. “Oh, is that good! Is that good!” Her voice throbbed as she spoke.
Panting, they gulped the soup, tilting the cans to let the meat and vegetables slip down their throats.
They fished out the other cans then, and he opened them, the chicken last. She took it by a leg and quickly lifted it to one of their plates.
“Don’t spill the juice. We’ll drink that out of the can.”
“I haven’t spilled a drop, Flora. Wait a minute. There’s a knife here, I’ll cut it in half.”
He jumped up, looked for the carpenter’s trimming knife he had used to whittle the kindling. He couldn’t find it.
“Damn it, there was a knife here. What did I do with it?”
She said nothing.
He cut the chicken in half with the hammer and chisel. They ate like a pair of animals, sometimes stopping to gasp for breath. Presently nothing was left but wet spots on the board plates. He got fresh water and set it on the fire. It heated quickly. He went to the kitchen, washed out the soup cans, came back, made the coffee in them. He opened the milk and sugar, gave each can a judicious dose.
“There you are, Flora. You can stir it with a chisel.”
“That’s just what I was wishing for all the time—that I could have a good cup of coffee, and then it would be perfect.”
“Is it O.K.?”
“Grand.”
He offered her a cigarette, but she said she didn’t smoke. He lit up, inhaled, lay back on the couch of tar paper. He was warm, full, and content. He watched her when she got up and cleared away the cans and bucket. She found a rag in the tool kit, dipped it in the last of the hot water.
“Don’t you want me to wipe the grease off your hands?”
He held out his hands, and she wiped them. She wiped her own hands, put the rag with the other stuff, sat down beside him. He held out his hand, open. She hesitated, looked at him a moment as she had looked at him in the store, put her hand in his.
“We ain’t got it so bad, Flora.”
“I’ll say we haven’t. Not to what we might have. We could have been drowned.”
He put his arm around her, drew her to him. She let her head fall on his shoulder. He could smell her hair, and his throat contracted, as though he were going to cry. For the first time in his short battered life he was happy. His grip on her tightened, he pushed his cheek against hers. She buried her face in his neck. He kept nuzzling her, felt his lips nearing her mouth. Then he pulled her to him hard, felt her yield, turn her head for his kiss.
Convulsively he winced. There was a sharp pain in the pit of his stomach. He looked down, saw something rough and putty-stained about the neck of her sweater. Instantly he knew what it was, what it was there for. He jumped up.
“So—that’s where the knife was. I pull you out of the gutter, feed you, take you in my arms, and all the time you’re getting ready to stick me in the back with that thing.”
She started to cry. “I never saw you before. You said you’d been in jail, and I didn’t know what you were fixing to do to me!”
He lit a cigarette, walked around the room. Once more he felt cold, forlorn, and bitter, the way he felt on the road. He looked out. The rain was slackening. He threw away the cigarette, sat down on the floor, drove his feet into the cold clammy shoes. Savagely he knotted the stiff laces. Then, without a word to her, he went slogging out into the night.
Joy Ride to Glory
I WAS ASSIGNED TO the kitchen, dipping grub for the guards, not the cons like the radio said I was. I had been in the laundry, but my fingers and toes all swelled up and I got a ringing in the ears from the liquid soap, so they switched me to the kitchen. My name is Red Conley. If you don’t quite recollect who Red Conley is, go down to the public library and look him up in the Los Angeles newspapers. You’ll find out a funny thing about him. According to them write-ups, Red Conley is dead.
It had been raining all morning, and around eleven the meat truck drives up. They let it right in the yard, and Cookie yells for me and Bugs Calenso to unload it. Bugs, he’s got three concurrents and two consecutives running against him, and some of it’s violation of parole, so they don’t bother to figure it up any more. Along about 2042, with good behavior and friends on the outside, he’s eligible. Me, I’m in for rolling six tires down the hill from Mullins’s Garage, which seemed to be a good idea at the time, but I was doing a one-to-five before we even got the papers off them. Still, I had served a year, and was up for parole, and it looked O.K., and if I’d let it ride I’d have been out in a month.
So me and Bugs, we split it up with me handling the meat, account I’m younger, and him handling the hooks, account he knows how. I’d pull out a quarter of beef, then brace under it, then come up. Then I’d tote it to the cold storage room, and Bugs would catch it with the hook that swiveled to the overhead trolley. Then he’d throw the switch and I’d shove the stuff in place, the forequarters on one rail, the hindquarters on another. There was four steers on the truck, two of them for someplace down the line, two of them for the prison. That meant eight quarters of meat, and I guess I took ten minutes, because beef is not feathers, and I needed a rest in between. But then it was all moved, and Bugs give a yelp for the driver, who was not outside, where he generally waited, but inside, account of the rain. So he yelped back, from inside the corridors someplace, and then we hollered some more and said what was he doing, stalling around so he could get a free meal off the taxpayers of the state of California, and why don’t he take away his truck? So Cookie joins in, and quite a few joins in, and some very good gags was made, and it was against the rules but it felt good to holler.
So Bugs was grinning at me, standing there in the door, but then all of a sudden he wasn’t grinning any more and he was looking at me hard. Then overhead I hear the planes. You understand how this was? The kitchen door is out back, and there’s a guard on that part of the wall. But he’s a spotter, see? He’s a spotter for the army, and just to make sure, he spots everything, and there he is now, with his rifle over one arm and his head thrown back, to see what’s coming. Three fast ones break out of a cloud, the split-tail jobs with two motors, but Bugs, he don’t wait. He motions to me and we take two steps. Then he checks front and I check rear. Then he vaults in the truck and I follow him. Then we lay down, in between quarters of beef.
We were hardly flat when the driver came out, still yelling gags at the guys in the kitchen. He climbs in, starts, rolls a little way, and s
tops, and we hear him say something to the guards at the gate. Then he gets going again, and starts down the hill on the motor, so it begins to backfire. He goes so fast I have to lock my throat to keep the wind from being shook out of me, ha-ha-ha-ha like that. Bugs, he seems to be having the same kind of trouble, but we both hang on and choke it back, whatever the driver might hear. He’s a little fat guy, and he sings the “Prisoner’s Song” pretty lousy, but he slows down for the boulevard stop at the bottom of the hill. That was when Bugs grabs my neck for a handhold and stands up. He stands right over me, so I can see his face, where it’s all twisted with this maniac look, and his hands, where they were hooked to come in on the driver’s neck.
Then I woke up for the first time to the spot I was in. Here, with one month to go only, I had got myself in the same truck with this killer, and made myself just as guilty of whatever was done as he was. I yelled at the driver then, as loud as I could scream. He hit the brake and turned around, but he was too late. That jerk threw Bugs right on top of him, and them hooks came together so his tongue popped out of his mouth. I grabbed at Bugs and begged him to quit, but then I woke up to what was going on outside. The truck was still rolling, and if something wasn’t done in about two seconds it was going over in the ditch. I reached over and grabbed the wheel, then I slid over the seat on my belly till I was on the right-hand side beside the driver, so with my left foot I could shove down the brake.
All during that time the driver was being pulled over backwards, so he arched up till his knees touched the wheel. Then something cracked, and I felt sick to my stomach. Then it wasn’t the driver back of the wheel, it was Bugs. He was panting like some kind of an animal, but he threw it in gear and we started off. Pretty soon he says: “Get back there, go through his pockets, and find his cigarettes.”
“Get back there yourself.”
“Oh, just a passenger, hey?”
“Just a fall guy, maybe.”
“O.K., fall guy, suppose you keep an eye out behind, see if they’re following us. Because if they’re not, maybe we still got a little time, before it’s a general alarm.”
“Haven’t you got a mirror?”
“Oh, just a passenger after all, hey?”