I asked him to do so. “Not on my account,” I said. “I know it’s useless to appeal to you on those grounds. Just do it for yourself. Just think of what it looks like for a boy of your background, and intelligence to—”
“I’m considering it,” he said. “I may possibly do it, if you don’t urge me to it.”
“Well, that’s fine,” I said. For, God pity me, there was some comfort—a relative lot—in even such an insolent, heartless reply as that. “You don’t have to do that kind of work, or any work. I’ll be delighted to give you any money that you need.”
“Don’t be offensive,” he said. “Don’t bother me.”
He said it quite mildly. I felt considerably encouraged.
Then, I came home the following night to find every drawer, every cabinet, in my office had been opened and rummaged through. No, he hadn’t broken them open. He had simply picked all the locks.
Now, he was seated in my chair, his feet up on my desk, absently smoking a cigarette.
I was so angry that for a moment I forgot my terror. I told him that he had better explain himself, and promptly, or he would have serious cause to regret it.
“Where is the stuff?” he said. “In your safety-deposit box?”
“It’s where you’ll never—what stuff?” I said. “I’ve warned you, Bobbie, you—”
“I had an idea it was,” he nodded. “Well, it looks like I’ll just have to buy some.”
He got up and started to leave. I grabbed him and whirled him around. “You rotten, filthy scum!” I said. “I’ll tell you what you’ll do, and what will happen to you if you don’t! You’ll—”
“Let go of me,” he said.
“I’ll let go of you! I’ll drag you straight down to the courthouse! I’ll—”
I let go of him suddenly. The fiendish sadistic whelp had crushed his cigarette into my wrist.
“Don’t ever do anything like that again,” he said calmly. “Do you understand me, father?”
“Bobbie…son,” I said. “For God’s sake, what do you want? What are you trying to do? That—that girl—”
“Don’t interfere with me,” he said.
He drove into the city the next day. He has made one other trip in since then. For what purpose, I needn’t explain.
How he manages it I don’t know. How a seventeen-year-old boy in a strange city can promptly locate a narcotics peddler and make a purchase, I don’t know.
Perhaps he doesn’t buy it. God—and I know I’m being ridiculous—he may make it! I have an insane notion that he could, if he wanted to. Anything that is mean and vicious, rotten, cruel, filthy, senseless…!
He is still doing the yard work, of course. Degrading himself, playing the flunkey, to buy dope for her.
If I could discover his motive, I might be able to do something. But what possible motive could he have? The girl is completely undesirable. As intelligent and handsome as he is, he could have his way with virtually any girl in town, without the deadly risk he is running. For it is a deadly one. It would be so, even without the complication of narcotics. Pete has only to find them together—in a certain way—and that will be the end.
Pete will kill him. Pete might even kill me.
I have almost driven myself crazy wondering what to do, but I can think of nothing. I can only wait, go on as I always have and wait—watch helplessly while doom approaches.
And Luane is responsible. Bobbie was always somewhat peculiar, withdrawn, but except for that sluttish old hypochondriac it would never have happened.
I broke with her last week. I may have to tolerate him, but I do not have to put up with her.
I told her there was nothing at all wrong with her, that I would not under any circumstances visit her again, that if she wanted a doctor she would have to call another (the nearest is twenty miles away). Then I walked out, leaving her to whine and complain to her own filthy self.
I should have done that long ago. I forbore only because it might seem that I was bothered by her slander, and thus lend weight to it.
Bobbie seemed pleased when I mentioned the matter casually at the dinner table.
“That was very wise of you,” he said. “I’d expected you to do it sooner.”
“Well,” I said, “as a matter of fact, I had been con—”
“But, no, I can see that this way is better,” he said. “It eliminates you pretty conclusively from the potential list of suspects. Now, if you’d cut her off sooner, let it be known that you were no longer going near her place before you established that you held no grudge against her…”
“Stop it!” I said. “What are you talking about, anyway? I refuse to listen to any more such nonsense!”
“Why, of course.” He winked at me, grinning. “It isn’t very discreet, is it? And we don’t need to talk, do we, dear father?”
I have been wondering lately if he is really my son. Wondering idly, wishfully perhaps, but still speculating on the matter. After all, if she would hop into bed with me so quickly, why not with another? How do I know what she was doing during the hours when I was away from the house? Obviously, she was of not much account. A woman who would behave as shamelessly as she did, tempting me until I could withstand it no longer, playing upon my kindness and sense of honor…
Well, never mind. He is my son. I know it. And I would be the last man in the world to attempt to evade my responsibilities. But that changes nothing, as far as she is concerned.
She had better not complain to me any more about Bobbie’s abuse. Not one word. Or I personally will give her something to complain about. I would send her packing if I dared to, which regrettably I don’t. It would look bad, as though the scandal had hit home. It would look like I was afraid—on the run.
So things stand; to this sorry, unbearable state I have come. Chained to a Negro woman—and I am not responsible to her. Inflicted with a son who—who—well, at least he isn’t a Negro. Not really. If a Negro was only one-sixteenth white, would you call him a white man? Well, it’s the same proposition. It’s—
It’s unbearable. Maddening. Completely unjust.
I don’t know what I would do without the comfort of Hank Williams’ friendship. I spend much of my free time with him, and he spends much of his with me. We understand each other. He admires and respects me. He is glad that I have gotten ahead, even though his own success has been somewhat modest. True, he seems unaware that he hasn’t gotten on—he seems to have forgotten that he ever talked of being senator or governor. But, no matter. He is my friend, and he has proved it in many ways. If he wishes to be a little smug, boastful, I can bear with it easily. Never in any way do I let on that his “success” wears a striking resemblance to failure.
We were talking the other night about our early days here. And he, as he is wont to do, passed some remark as to his progress since then. I said that his was a career to be proud of, that very few lawyers had risen so high in so brief a time. He beamed and smirked; and then with that earnest warmth which only he is capable of, he said that he owed his success to me.
“Well,” I said. “I’ve certainly boosted you whenever I could, but I’m afraid I—”
“Remember our first talk together? The day I was drawing up those papers for you?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “Of course I remember. You set me straight here, saw that—”
“Sure! Uh-hah. You sly old rascal you!” He threw back his head, and laughed. “I set you straight. A country bumpkin, a small town lawyer, set a big city doctor straight. He told him how to get on in the world!”
I didn’t say anything. I was too bewildered. For I had told him nothing that day. Nothing until I had pretty well ascertained his own feelings.
“Oh, I understood you, all right!” he laughed. “Naturally, you couldn’t come straight out with it; you had to spar around a little, make sure of how I felt first. But…”
He winked at me, grinning. I stared at him, feeling my hands tighten on the arms of my chair; then, as the m
urderous hatred drained out of me, feeling them slowly relax and grow limp.
He had done me no injury. His intelligence, his moral stamina, that vaguely concrete thing called character—all had been stunted at the outset. Perhaps they would have amounted to little, regardless; perhaps environment and heredity would have dwarfed them, without the withering assistance of our long-ago, initial conversation.
At any rate, he had not harmed me; he had not changed me one whit from what I essentially was. Others, doubtless, many others, but not me.
If anything, it was the other way around.
He was frowning slightly, looking a little uncomfortable and puzzled. He repeated his phrase about my having had to spar around with him, until I was sure of how he felt.
“And how did you feel, Hank?” I said. “Basically—deep down in your heart?”
“Oh, well,” he shrugged. “You don’t need to ask that, Jim. You know how I stand on those things.”
“But back then,” I insisted, “right back in the beginning. Tell me, Hank. I really want to know.”
“We-el—” He hesitated, and spread his hands. “You know, Jim. About like most people, I guess. A lot of people, anyway. Kind of on the fence, and wishing I could stay there. But knowing I had to jump one way or the other, and knowing I was pretty well stuck on the side I jumped to. I—well, you know what I mean, Jim. It’s kind of hard to put into words.”
“I see,” I said. “I hoped…I mean, I thought that was probably the way you felt.”
“Well,” he said; and, after a moment, again, “Well.”
He studied me a trifle nervously; then, unable to read my expression, he gave out with that bluffly amiable, give-me-approval laugh of his.
It was a hearty laugh, but one that he was ready to immediately modulate. His face was flushed with high good humor: a mask of good-fellowish hilarity which could, at the wink of an eye, with practiced effortlessness, become the essence of gravity, sobriety, seriousness.
I laughed along with him. With him, and at myself. Our laughter filled the room, flowed out through the windows into the night; echoing and reechoing, sending endless ripples on and on through the darkness. It remained with us, the laughter, and it departed from us. Floating out across the town, across hill and dale, across field and stream, across mountain and prairie, across the night-lost farm houses, the hamlets and villages and towns, the bustling, tower-twinkling cities. Across—around—the world, and back again.
We laughed, and the whole world laughed.
Or should I say jeered?
Suddenly I got up and went to the window. Stood there unseeing, though my eyes were wider than they had ever been, my back turned to him.
And where there had been uproar, there was now silence. Almost absolute silence.
He could not stand that, of course. After almost twenty years, it dawned on me that he could not. Whenever there is silence, he must fill it. With something. With anything. So, after he had regained his guffaw-drained breath, after he had achieved a self-satisfactory evaluation of my mood, he spoke again. Went back to the subject of our conversation.
“Well, anyway, Jim. As I was saying, I’m eternally grateful to you. I hate to think what might have happened if we hadn’t had that talk.”
I winced, unable to answer him for a moment. Immediately his voice tightened, notched upward with anxiety.
“Jim…Jim? Don’t you look at it that way, too, Jim? Don’t you kind of hate to think—”
“Oh, yes—” I found my voice. “Yes, indeed, Hank. On the other hand…”
“Yeah? What were you going to say, Jim?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just that I doubt that it would have changed anything. Not with men like us.”
6
Marmaduke “Goofy” Gannder (Incompetent)
When I awakened it was morning, and I was lying on the green pavement of The City of Wonderful People, and a hideous hangover held me in its thrall.
I sat up by degrees, shaking and shuddering. I massaged my eyes, wondering, yea, even marveling, over the complete non-wonderment of the situation. For lo! I invariably have a hangover in the morning, even as it is invariably morning when I awaken: and likewise, to complete the sequence of non-marvelousness, I invariably awaken in The City of Wonderful People.
“Hell,” I thought (fervently); “the same today, yesterday and—Ouch!”
I said the last aloud, adding a prayerful expletive, for the sunlight had stabbed into my eyes, speared fierily into my head like a crown of thorns. In my agony, I rocked back and forth for a moment; and then I staggered to my feet and stumbled over to Grandma’s bed.
It was not a very nice bed, compared to those of the City’s other inhabitants. Untended, except for my inept ministrations, it was protected only by an oblong border of wine bottles, which seemed constantly to be getting broken. And it was sunken in uncomfortably: and the grass was withered and brown—yeah, generously fertilized as it obviously was by untold numbers of dogs, cats and rodents. The headboard of the bedstead was of weathered, worm-eaten wood, a dwarfed phallus-like object bearing only her name and the word “Spinster”: painfully, or perhaps, painlessly, free of eulogy.
I studied the bleak inscription, thinking, as I often do when not occupied with other matters, that I should do something about it. I had considered substituting the words “Human Being,” with possibly a suffixed “Believe It Or Not.” But Grandma had not liked that: she had considered it no compliment. And she had made no bones—no pun intended—about letting me know it.
I sat facing her bed, my head bowed against the sun, staring down into the sunken hummock. The grass rustled restlessly, whispering in the wind; and after a time there was a dry, snorting chuckle.
“Well?” Grandma said. “Penny for your thoughts.”
“Now, that—” I forced a smile. “Now, that is the sort of thing that brings on inflation.”
Grandma snickered. She asked me how I was getting along with my book.
I said fine, that, in fact, I had finished it.
“Well, let’s hear some of it,” Grandma said. “Start right with the beginning.”
“Certainly, Grandma,” I said. “Certainly…‘Once upon a time, there were two billion and a half bastards who lived in a jungle, which weighed approximately six sextillion, four hundred and fifty quintillion short tons. Though they were all brothers, these bastards, their sole occupation was fratricide. Though the jungle abounded in wondrous fruits, their sole food was dirt. Though their potential for knowledge was unlimited, they knew but one thing. And what they knew was only what they did not know. And what they did not know was what was enough.’”
I stopped speaking.
Grandma stirred impatiently. “Well, go on.”
“That’s all there is,” I said.
“But I thought you said you’d finished. That’s no more than you had before.”
“It’s all there is,” I repeated. “As I see it, there is nothing more to say.”
We were silent for a time. Without talk to divert me, my hangover began to return, crept slowly up through my body and over my head. Shaking me, sickening me, gnawing at me inside and out like some hateful and invisible reptile.
Grandma snickered sympathetically. “Pretty sick, aren’t you?”
“A little,” I said. “Something I took internally seems to have disagreed with me. Or, I should say—in all fairness—I disagreed with it. It was entirely friendly and tractable until I removed it from the bottle.”
“You know what to do about it,” Grandma said. “You know what you’ve got to do.”
“I don’t know whether I can make it,” I said. “Rather, I have a strong suspicion that I can’t make it.”
“You’ve got to,” Grandma said, “so stop wasting good breath. Stop talking and start moving.”
I groaned piteously, making futile motions of arising. The flesh was willing, but also weak. And as for spirit, I had none whatsoever.
“Verily, Grandma
,” I moaned. “Verily, verily. I would swap my soul to Satan for one good drink.”
“Cheapskate,” said Grandma. “Now, cut out the gab and get on your way.”
I nodded miserably. Somehow, I managed to get to my feet. “I shall do as you say, Grandma,” I said.
Grandma made no reply. Presumably she had returned to her well-earned sleep.
I turned and tried to tiptoe away from her. I lost my balance and fell flat on my face, and minutes passed before I could pick myself up again. Finally, after several similar fallings and pickings-up, I reached the road to town.
A truck was coming from the opposite direction. It looked like Joe Henderson’s, and it was. I swung an arm, limply, thumb upraised, in the gesture as old as hitchhiking. Joe slowed down, and came to a stop. Then, as I reached for the door, he jabbed one finger into the air, and roared away.
I walked on, more strengthened, more firm in my purpose than otherwise. I wondered what loss Joe could suffer that could not be recouped by insurance, and I decided that the tires of his truck would be a very good bet.
Another farm truck drove up behind me—Dutch Eaton’s. Dutch stopped and leaned out, asked me solicitously if I was tired of walking.
“Yes,” I said, “but please spare me the suggestion that I run a while. It was not very amusing even when I first heard it, back during my cradle days.”
His fat face reddened with anger. He sputtered, “Why, you crazy, low-down—!”
“Listen,” I said. “Listen, listen, Mr. Eaton. What is it that is gutless, brainless and moves around on wheels? A swine, Mr. Eaton. A pig in overalls.”
He had been easing the door open. Now, he sprang out with a furious roar, and, whirling, I also sprang. I am almost always equal to such emergencies. Weak though I may have been a moment before, the strength and the agility to save myself invariably come to me. And they did now.
So I leaped the ditch, and vaulted easily over the fence. I walked on up into the orchard in the rear of the Devore estate, listening to Dutch curse me, and, finally, drive away.