Days Like Today (10 page)

They weren’t in fear of their lives any longer. Niceness wasn’t something to be aspired to. It wasn’t a necessity of life until it came to represent other things that were missing.

‘I’m sorry,’ Sherman said. ‘I guess I just forgot.’

He could no longer remember what had been in his mind at the beginning or why he’d decided to go in search of Franklin. Maybe if he hadn’t been asked to stay, he’d have started to walk back out of town. Or perhaps he’d have found some place for the night and then gone on. But now he’d been at the house for so long that he couldn’t go. Something had to happen before he could leave.

Sometimes he felt that Franklin had wronged him; that he’d managed to make him a kind of nothing – an object that had had to be lifted from one place to another: out of the field and into the hospital.

Sometimes he thought of him as a man who had made a fatherly and brotherly gesture to him in spite of the fact that they were hardly more than strangers. He would have liked to be that kind of man.

And so, once in a while, he thought of himself becoming Franklin.

*

Certain things about Sherman began to worry Franklin: the man’s need to seek sanctuary in bars, his capacity for drink and, when drunk, his favorite phrase for summoning the waitress, which was, ‘Hey you, brainless.’ Still, they’d been through a bad time together and Franklin soon learned to suggest going only to places he’d never been in and wouldn’t mind not going back to. The twilit atmosphere of these saloons began to remind him of the war, where you’d see people’s faces lit up from darkness by flares and airport lighting. And the smoky atmosphere was like other bars and nightclubs he’d been in at that time.

They were in a place called ‘The Highlife Café’ when Sherman asked what he could do to repay him for his hospitality. Franklin said, ‘Relax, Sherman. You’re a guest. We don’t want anything.’

‘But I can’t keep sponging off of your goodwill like this.’

‘Cut it out. Do you hear any complaints?’

‘It’s so strange to see how you’ve got this whole life, like everything happened someplace else, like it never happened, put it behind you and all. I mean, I know it’s been a
long time since, um … I just don’t seem to be able to settle down somehow.’

‘Do you want to?’

‘Well, sure. I guess so. If I could find a girl who’d be interested. But most of the ones I see aren’t homemaker types. They’re all looking for a lot of money.’

‘Not all of them. Hell, there are as many different kinds of women as men.’

‘No. There’s only one kind. Because they all do the same thing. They get married and they have kids. When they’re young, they’re looking forward to it. When they get married, they’re in the middle of it and when they’re old, they’re those grandmothers: always poking their noses in every place. See, that’s all they got.’

‘A lot of women go out to work.’

‘Only if they have to. They’d rather be married to a man who’s earning enough to let them stay at home. Look after the kids. All that. So on and so forth.’

‘Maybe,’ Franklin said.

When they got back to the house, Sherman sensed from the way Irene was standing – as she watched him come in – that if he didn’t leave her family in peace for a while, she was going to make her husband kick him out.

He asked Franklin to drop him near the library on his way to work the next day.

‘I’m going to need the car,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

‘Sure. I’ll be taking the bus, Sherman. But I can show you which stop. I didn’t know you were a reading man.’

‘I read books about war. I like to hear what everybody
has to say on the subject. I found a very interesting book a couple of years ago called
Great Battles of the World,
where they took you through it step by step: the technology, the terrain, the weather, the kings and generals. You know, one of the big problems in olden times was being able to see the enemy and not losing sight of where your commander was heading. That’s right. There was one famous battle – I forget which – way back there, where everybody charged forwards for the first few minutes, yelling blue murder and everything and after that they were all blinded by the cloud of dust they’d kicked up. Even the horses couldn’t see anything. It was a mess. It was like they was all in the dark and couldn’t find their way out.’

Irene said, ‘I guess it’s always sensible to choose a good location. And make sure you don’t have the sun in your eyes.’

‘The geography is important. But there’s one thing even more vital than that: choosing your time. If you can pick the right time, you can even make it so it’s the wrong time for the other guy.’

‘Strategy,’ Franklin said.

‘Strategy and tactics.’

Irene asked, ‘What’s the difference?’

Neither of the men could tell her but each one thought the other had the wrong idea. The subject shifted to the tactics and strategy needed to be a successful poker player. Irene started to get ready for bed. Franklin dropped the car keys into the brass bowl on the telephone table.

Later in the night Sherman heard the two of them talking:

‘He’s revolting,’ she whispered.

‘Oh, honey. He’s a bit rough and he doesn’t know how to behave in polite company, but otherwise he’s OK. Come on.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ she said. ‘He’s raw, savage, a drunk and creepy. He’s the type that stabs you in the back when you aren’t expecting it.’

‘He just hasn’t gotten over it yet.’

‘Why not? You did. He’s only hanging around, feeling sorry for himself.’

‘Feeling sorry for yourself is the hardest thing of all to fight. You get to thinking that it’s natural, because nobody else is going to. There are a lot of people, you know – a lot who don’t have anybody to love them. And it isn’t easy to live like that: to live without love and to know that the whole of your life is probably going to be that way.’

‘You were all right.’

‘Because I finally learned to do without it and to stop wanting. That’s the trick. That’s when you attract it.’

‘Your family loved you.’

‘Let’s don’t talk about my family. Please.’

‘Let’s not.’

‘Fine.’

‘Let’s not, not let’s don’t.’

There was silence for a while and then some creaks and rustling and a whisper from one of them, it was impossible to tell which one, saying, ‘Let’s do.’

He joined the library, giving Franklin’s address as his place of residence. He sat down and looked through at least one
book every day he went in, although he didn’t often check a book out on his card, as everyone else did, to remove from the building and read at home.

In the evenings he’d be out with Franklin in the bars or maybe going to a movie on his own.

Every day at the library he kept seeing the same people. Most of them were older than he was. He assumed that they were on their own, like him. There were three old-maidish ladies and two men, one of whom – a ferocious old codger – owned a surly police dog he used to leave tied to the railings outside. The dog dozed or lay on its belly as if asleep, unless Sherman was nearby, in which case it would raise its lip to show its teeth, and growl low in its throat. The dislike was mutual: a boy he’d known back in school had been chewed up by the same breed of dog and Sherman had never trusted them since.

He read about the Napoleonic wars. He liked Napoleon. But he also liked the Duke of Wellington. He thought it was interesting that a lot of historical crises threw up great men – one on each side – and that even if you came to the conclusion that one of them was wrong, or had bad ideas, it was usually true that the two were of equal importance. A great man was worthy of a great enemy.

He mentioned some of his reading to Franklin when they went out at night. Irene was happy to get them both out of the house, as for several days in a row she was going to have meetings with women’s groups of one kind or another.

‘If wars was the way they used to be,’ Sherman said, ‘I could have been a general.’

‘That’s what we all think. But it’s a special talent. Most of us could be soldiers, or even captains and colonels, but only a few men know how to organize a battle and keep it running when everything starts turning out crazy.’

‘I bet I could.’

‘Well, I couldn’t. But I think maybe Irene could.’

‘Is that right?’

‘She always gets what she wants.’

‘Must be a nice feeling.’

‘Oh, it’s nice for me, too. But I’ll tell you: they say if you know how to play chess, you could lead an army. I mean, if you’re good at it. If you can beat most other people.’

‘You’ve changed,’ Sherman said. ‘You’ve been civilized. You’ve settled down.’

‘I’ve adapted. Well, you have to.’

‘I don’t know. Civilian life – you’ve got to keep telling yourself to behave right. And if you don’t, some tight-assed son of a bitch is going to. Peacetime … You don’t get scared but it’s hard on your mind. Everybody’s so smug and laced up. You know, once they got something going, they all talk to each other, they go visiting each other, they have their little supper parties together, they go for drives and picnics and cookouts. All that kind of thing. And you have to belong to the club.’

‘It isn’t that bad.’

‘Don’t you remember the way it used to be? Sitting around with the girls? Playing poker. That was better. I miss that. Don’t you?’

‘What I’ve got now is better. You’ll find out. It’ll happen to you some day, too.’

‘Busted flush, full house, two pairs, royal straight, aces high, deuces wild. Full house – that’s your family: three and a pair.’

‘Four. There’s the baby.’

‘What I always wanted was a royal flush.’

‘You might get it but you wouldn’t be able to use it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because that’s the way it works.’

‘The game I used to like best was the one called Midnight Baseball.’

‘Is that the one where you’re betting blind?’

‘Right. The one with the psychology.’

‘If that’s what you want to call it. That’s a fancy name for throwing your money away.’

‘Peacetime,’ Sherman sighed. ‘It’s so quiet, so safe. But sometimes this feeling just comes over me that it isn’t real. Look at all this. Once you start it, it works so smooth – and then everybody thinks that this is normal. But you and me, we know it isn’t. Listen. Did I ever tell you about the fur-trappers in Canada?’

‘You told me.’

‘I just love that. And the baby sharks? No? This one is good.’ With many gestures, including clawing and biting movements, Sherman related how a marine biologist, back in the late 1940s, had been studying sharks; he’d had a dead female shark on the slab and at one stage during the dissection he’d put his hand into the uterus and had been bitten. Further examination disclosed that although sharks gave birth to one offspring, the original number of embryos in the
womb was five; they existed together on the mother’s supply of nourishment, which wasn’t enough to last up to the time of birth. ‘When the food runs out,’ Sherman said, ‘they have to start eating each other. And it’s like the man says: survival of the fittest. Only one gets born.’

‘Not surprising,’ Franklin said. “That’s what sharks are like.’

‘But now they’re saying how a lot of babies are supposed to be twins but the one kid kind of sucks the other one into itself before they’re born. You know about this thing called the afterbirth – it’s a big mess of blood – well, that’s what’s left of the other babies.’

‘Sherman, the afterbirth is associated with every single birth.’

‘That’s what I’m saying. We’re all like that.’

‘It isn’t the remains of other embryos.’

‘But it is.’

‘Not according to the medical profession as it’s practiced all over the world.’

‘The medical profession? Jesus, what I could tell you about them.’

‘It’s –’

‘Go into a hospital with a headache and – before you know what’s hit you – they’ve stuck you into a straitjacket. Without a boo, biff or bang.’

‘Bam.’

‘What?’

‘Without a boo, biff or bam.’

‘Bang. My grandmother used to say it.’

‘So did my mother’s cousin, only she said bam.’

‘Bang. You’re thinking of: wham, bam, thank you, Ma’am.’

‘Let’s have another,’ Franklin said. He changed the subject to earthquakes. And after they’d agreed that earthquakes were even worse than volcanoes, Franklin said, ‘Too bad you didn’t become a gangster. I’d hire you to bump off Raymond Saddler.’

‘For five thousand bucks I’d shoot my own mother.’

‘Not really.’

‘As God is my judge.’

‘That’s the trouble. God said: thou shalt not kill.’

‘Not my God.’

‘Yeah, well. We’ve all done it but you don’t think about it the same way when it’s in combat. It’s your duty.’

‘Dead is dead.’

‘How could you say that about your mother?’

‘She’s dead.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

‘It’s a way of saying what I’d do. I wouldn’t say it like that if she was alive. So, who’s Raymond Saddler?’

‘Oh, just a mean son-of-a-bitch.’

Sherman nodded. ‘Lot of them around. What I said: that’s what we’re like.’

‘Well, I don’t know how to answer that except to say that I don’t think we’re like foxes or sharks.’

‘OK, you tell me what we’re like.’

‘This is the kind of discussion I don’t enjoy getting into.’

‘Why not?’ Sherman waved his hand. The impulse unbalanced him momentarily; he ended the gesture abruptly and
grabbed the edge of the bar. ‘Talk: everybody does it,’ he said. ‘What you scared of?’

‘I don’t like constantly having to justify myself or talking against something I know is wrong when I don’t have the arguments to back up what I want to say. You know – statistics and all that stuff. The truth is, I think people – all people, including myself – are hard to understand. What they teach you in school: two plus two is four, and so on – that’s easy. That makes sense. And if somebody tells you their thoughts, they usually make sense. Or their dreams. But emotions: they’ve always seemed to me to be a kind of mysterious world. Where they come from, why they appear or disappear – I don’t understand any of it. And sometimes they scare me. Even when they’re good emotions, they strike me as being just about to become uncontrollable. I don’t understand why they have to be there at all, if we’re capable of thought. Or why they should suddenly run dry when things are the way they’ve always been.’