American Dreams (27 page)

'Where do 1 find Sykes?'

Carl's tone made the female typewriter draw back warily at her desk.

'His offices are upstairs.' She pointed at an ornate circular staircase in the corner. 'But he never sees visitors without--'

Carl was already halfway to the next floor.

He pushed people aside, not seeing their faces, how they were dressed, how they reacted to the sight of a man in workman's clothes stalking along glaring at the brass nameplate on each door. Carl found the plate that said F. Wayne Sykes, Jr. He twisted the ornate doorknob.

'--and I want this radiator, the whole damn auto, larger. I told you yesterday

- larger. Are you stupid? I won't take garbage like this to Mr.

Clymer.'

Carl pounded the door open with his fist. Wayne Sykes, smartly dressed in ,a brown three-piece suit, sat at a mammoth desk littered with layouts.

Standing at one side, a gray-faced man with chalk smudges on his shirt and hands nervously made notes on a pad.

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'Miss Rumford, I've told you expressly, knock before--' Sykes's eyes focused. 'Jesus Christ. What are you doing in this office?'

Carl took in the opulent furniture, framed photos of the Clymer factory, Clymer automobiles, Mr. Clymer, an elderly man who resembled Sykes.

There were gaudy plaques, award certificates, a Harvard diploma.

'Thought you'd like to know your hoodlums didn't do the job.'

'Are you drunk? Are you a madman? 1 don't know what you mean.'

To the flunky Carl said, 'You'd better get out.' The flunky ran.

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Striving

'You're the one who'd better get out,' Sykes said. 'I'll have you put away for ten years.'

'I don't think so. One of the men you sent was named Elroy. If the police round up all the Elroys in town and put them through the sweat box, I'll bet one of them will lay out a trail straight to you. If you've bought off the police, then I'll hire a lawyer through my father in Chicago. A lawyer like Darrow who loves to wipe up scum like you.' It was an outrageous bluff. He'd given the police Elroy's name and descriptions of all three men. The detectives took down the information as though they intended to forget it in ten minutes. But Sykes didn't know any of that.

Sykes's eye shifted to ivory buttons on a box beside his upright phone.

Carl pulled the box off the desk, broke its wire, threw it on the floor. Then he tore the telephone loose and hurled it against the wall. The glass on Lorenzo Clymer's portrait splintered and rattled down. Sykes screamed,

'Someone phone the police! Miss Rumford--' Carl reached across the desk and hauled him up by his necktie.

'So you like rough stuff, do you?'

He broke Sykes's nose with his first blow. The second blow brought a gout of blood from both nostrils. Sykes collapsed on the layouts, bleeding on the sketches of Clymer autos. Carl ran around the desk and dumped him out of his chair.

'Oh please, oh please,' Sykes said, on his knees, hands protecting his gory face.

'Shut up, shut the hell up,' Carl shouted, slapping Sykes backhand, slicking his knuckles with blood. 'Your thugs hurt my friend so bad he may not walk again.'

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'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' Sykes's tears ran into the blood and mucus dripping from his nose. His crotch was dark; he'd urinated on himself. 'I love Tess, I had to do something.'

Carl hauled him up and pounded him twice in the gut, then flung him against the wall. The Clymer plant photo fell on his head, sprinkling broken glass in his hair. Carl wanted to hit him again, but he wasn't so possessed by rage that he failed to see Sykes couldn't fight back. Anything further wouldn't be punishment, just brutality.

He heard noises in the corridor. 'In there, in there! He's killing Mr.

Sykes!' Three policemen with hickory billy clubs piled through the door and beat Carl to the floor.

Savagery

165

He spent the night in jail. He ached from the beating, couldn't keep food down, couldn't sleep. He was sure he'd go to prison for what he'd done.

To his astonishment they released him early in the morning. No charges had been filed by Wayne Sykes. Was there a more telling admission of guilt? Carl derived no satisfaction, though, from the obvious answer.

He visited Jesse in the charity ward. His friend was awake, drowsy, and falsely cheerful. As Carl left, a staff doctor confided to Carl that the damage to Jesse's leg was severe. He would be on crutches for a while. He might be on crutches permanently.

'He works in a foundry. You can't work in a foundry on crutches.'

'I'm sure that's true. He'll have to do something else.'

Carl found the nearest saloon and knocked back two whiskeys at half past ten in the morning. His world was rapidly collapsing.

At noon he punched the clock at Piquette Avenue. The time-keeping clerk looked out of his booth, stared at Carl's bruises. 'Boss has been looking for you all over the place.'

'You mean Gogarty?'

'The big boss. Henry. You better hightail up to the second floor.'

In the main hall and on the staircase he felt everyone was looking at him. Men in the drafting room stopped their work and broke off conversations when he entered. He walked to Ford's open door. Ford looked up from a blueprint.

'About time you showed up, Carl. Step in here. You may sit down.'

Ford rolled up the blueprint, snapped an elastic around it. A shaving
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nick showed on his jaw. Little blue flowers patterned his necktie. He was about as warm and friendly as a piece of iron bar stock.

'Last night I had a telephone call at home from Lorenzo Clymer. He told me something outrageous. He said you beat up a friend of his.' Among papers on the desk Ford located a memo slip. 'Sykes. Young fellow in advertising. Is that the truth?'

'Yes, sir.'

'They hauled you to jail and you spent the night there?'

'Yes, sir. I wasn't charged with anything.'

Ford waited a little. 'That's all? You have nothing else to say?'

'Sykes deserved it. It's a personal matter.'

Ford shook his head. "I don't make a habit of climbing out on a limb to hire somebody at your level. I made an exception because 1 thought I saw 166

Striving

some fine stuff in your attitude and deportment. Good potential. You fooled me. You let me down. You let the whole company down. You violated the rules I described at my house. I did describe them, didn't I?'

'Yes, sir, you specifically said no public brawling to embarrass Ford Motor Company.'

'Yes, I certainly did. You broke the rules and tied a ribbon on it.' Ford gave him a severe look. 'You're discharged. No severance, just your wages for this week. I'll give you a half hour to empty your locker and leave the plant. That's all.'

'Mr. Ford, will you allow me to say I'm sorry for--?'

'No, I will not.' He glared like a wrathful preacher. 'You keep on, Carl, you'll amount to nothing. I believe every man should get a second chance.

When someone gives you yours, I hope you won't be stupid and ruin it.'

The telephone rang.

'One more thing. Clymer said that if you set foot on his property, here or in Grosse Pointe, he'd put you away for five years.'

Again Carl tried to speak. The phone rang a second time. Angrily, Ford waved him out as he picked up the receiver and said, 'Henry. Go ahead.'

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32 Separation

At Third Street and the river, next to the Michigan Central depot, stood the Wayne Hotel. With its marble floors and fountains, its three bars, five restaurants, and ten-chair tonsorial parlor, it vied with the Ponchartrain for the honor of being 'Detroit's finest.' Carl had strolled through once under the suspicious eye of front-desk men, but he couldn't have afforded so much as a breakfast at the Wayne, where he arrived Sunday morning at half past ten, wearing his old brown corduroy coat with Tess's scarf wound around his neck. He waited by the closed ticket booth of the hotel's roller skating pavilion. A sleepy black man was opening the shutters one by one.

Out on the sunny river a coal boat sounded its whistle.

less appeared breathlessly at fifteen before eleven. She carried a small hamper. She looked rested, refreshed. They walked down to the ferry terminal, where day trippers lined up to board Pleasure, the gleaming white boat of the Detroit, Belle Isle & Windsor Ferry Company.

Separation

167

'Father told me what you did to Wayne.'

Fishing in his pocket for seventy cents, Carl looked at her for signs of condemnation, saw none.

'I hurt him pretty badly. The men he sent spiked the leg of my riding mechanic with a fish gaff, by mistake. You met Jess. He may never walk without crutches. You can't work in a foundry on crutches.'

'Oh, God, that's dreadful.'

'Damn right. Jesse's built a fairly good life working in the foundry. It's my fault.'

lie paid for two round-trip tickets. They boarded Pleasure as a brass bell rang, signaling departure.

'Did Wayne admit he sent the men?'

'Yes, but I can't prove it to anyone. It's a terrible mess.'

Tess sank down on an outside bench overlooking the starboard rail. 'Yes, it is. At the same time, these are the sweetest months I've ever known. Why is life always so mixed up, the good with the bad?'

'Maybe someone brainy like FJ,merson knows. I sure as hell don't.'

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The Detroit River ran between the lakes for a distance of about thirty miles. Downstream from the city, opposite Amherstburg, lay Bois Blanc, one of the area's most popular destinations for lovers, Sunday school classes, and all manner of excursionists. It was not yet warm enough for the island bathhouse to be open. The stone dance pavilion was closed on Sundays, but the cafe was busy, the shady pathways and athletic fields crowded in the early afternoon. Carl and Tess ate their picnic at a rustic table. She'd brought ajar of cold tea, lukewarm by the time they drank it but delicious. No alcohol was allowed on Bois Blanc.

Carl brushed crumbs off the checked cloth; she'd baked a loaf of oat bread for thick liverwurst sandwiches enhanced with strong Swiss cheese and hot German mustard. Unused to the deep waters he was treading, Carl was awkward in bringing up the subject that was bothering him so deeply.

He held her hand across the table. Sun and shadow from the new leaves above them played on her face. He said, 'Do you regret what we--

what happened out in the country?'

'Not for a minute. Do you?'

'No. Well, yes if I took advantage of you.'

'You didn't.' Carl's gaze remained fixed on the table, and she squeezed his hand. 'You didn't.'

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Striving

He looked at her. There was no way to make the leap but to do it. Will you marry me, Tess?'

'No.'

Stunned, more than a little hurt, he sat back. 'Why not? We could leave Detroit, settle down somewhere else.'

'Is this guilt talking?'

'It's me talking, damn it. I've told you over and over. I love you.'

'And I love you. Which is exactly the reason I wouldn't say yes. You're not a factory man, a time-clock man, how often have you told me? I know some other things you are. Brave, kind - very exciting, because there's a wild streak in you. What's deeper than that, I'm not sure. Maybe you don't know either' Sun glistened in her eyes suddenly. 'But you won't discover the answer staying here out of some misguided sense of duty. I release you, Carl. I've never really had any hold on you, or intended one. I want you to
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leave. Chase down Barney Oldfield. I know it's what you want.'

'Tess, please let me--'

She stood up, smoothing her skirt. 'Subject closed. Shall we walk? It's a lovely afternoon.'

He mentioned marriage twice more during the afternoon, but she refused to discuss it. She was cheerful, spoke rapidly, with a flush on her cheeks as she chatted of other things. At five o'clock she said they should go home.

He left her in Detroit's central square, at the monument to the city's founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, Knight of St. Louis. Behind the empty granite chair she rearranged the red scarf, smoothing the ends over the lapels of his coat.

'My shining knight. Off to chase the Saracens and dragons.'

'The only dragon I know is the green one Oldfield drove. I can't go unless we settle--'

'Carl, we've settled it. Godspeed. Please don't call or try to see me again. My heart's breaking already.'

She threw her arms around him, shocking the automobilists and buggy drivers passing in the spring twilight. He felt her tears as they kissed. She struggled to smile as she snatched up the basket and ran for the streetcar.

He withdrew all his savings from the Dime Bank down on Griswold Street, nine dollars. He settled accounts with Mrs. Gibbs, who said he'd been a good boarder, no trouble, he'd be welcome back anytime. He wrapped the red silk Postcard from Indianapolis 169

scarf around his neck and set off with his grip for Jesse's house. He found his friend in the backyard, trying to cultivate a flower bed one-handed.

Jesse let the hoe drop and rested on his padded crutch. His left trouser leg looked fatter than the right; it was still bandaged.

'Came to say so long, Jess.7

'So long, Carl. I'll miss youvyou've been a true friend. When you looked at me, you never saw a colored man, except maybe the first time. Do you figure to hunt up Oldfield like you said?'

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Carl nodded. He pointed at the ashy black remains of the shed. 'Will you rebuild that?'

'Sure. I can work sitting down. I'll sort out the metal first, then use the ashes. Wood ashes make good cheap mulch.'

'What are you going to do for a regular job?'

'Oh, I won't have trouble. There's always some kind of nigger work long as white folks don't want to dirty their hands. Maybe I'll go to barber college.

I could buy a stool, tall, so I wouldn't have to stand. Got nice steady hands.'

Carl was appalled at the thought of a strong, free spirit like Jess reduced to cutting hair in some colored barber shop. 'Hoot Edmunds will always hire you as a riding mechanic'