Roughneck (3 page)

       I had to admit that the occupant of the drawer did look that way. His genially ruddy countenance spoke of many gay jousts with the so-called Demon Rum, and the bottles which nestled around him seemed anything but incongruous. There was a certain rightness about them. He looked much more natural in the close company of beer than he had without.

       Still, I didn't like it, and I said so. Which, of course, was all I could do by way of protest. Certainly I couldn't report Bill to the management for what was no more than a breach of good taste.

       The long night passed. The following night Bill came to work with a dozen quart bottles, giving four to me and placing the other eight in the cool custody of the "nice old fella." He had to go out around nine on an ambulance call. I was dozing comfortably in the chapel, with a half gallon of warm beer in me and another half at my side, when the night bell rang.

       I shoved the bottles under my chair, and went to the door.

       It was a party of three people, two middle-aged women and a man. They had just arrived from out-of-state, and must start back that very night. Cranky with weariness and sorely pressed for time, they demanded to be shown the remains of you-know-who.

       I stammered inane excuses. I urged them to sit down for a few minutes. I was by myself at the moment, I stuttered, and it was against the rules to—to—

       The door to the rear opened. Bill strolled in, a quart of beer tilted to his mouth. "How about a cold one, Jim boy?" he said. "Come on back an' see how nice this ol' fella is—"

       He broke off, open-mouthed. He looked from the three people to me, and my contorted features told him the terrible truth. Very unwisely, although I could well understand the action, he turned and ran.

       Grim and suspicious, our visitors followed him.

       Now, seven quarts of beer can be very hard to handle, even if one is not frantic with alarm...as, of course, Bill was. They slid from his stricken fingers. They dropped out of his shirt front where he was futilely trying to stuff them. And save for one which burst on the floor, they all went back around the bosom of their recent host.

       Our visitors discovered him thus. The ladies shrieked. The gentleman cursed and threatened to cane us. They stamped out then, to a telephone; some twenty minutes later the owner of the establishment arrived.

       He fired Bill and me on the spot.

       Somehow, while I do drink it, I have never cared much for beer since then.

My next job was in a bakery. The hours were from six p.m. until midnight five days a week, plus all day Saturday and Sunday. The pay was twelve dollars a week. The work was hard and virtually incessant.

       I was what is known as a "batch man," the employee who works in the storeroom and puts together the ingredients necessary for the various bakery products. The bakers and floor workers could rest between jobs, but there was no rest, no between, with mine. I had to "set up" for both the day and night crews. As fast as one batch was out of the way, the floor was crying for another. Bread dough, sweet dough, cake dough, pie dough, filling, topping, icing, frosting, eggwash, oil, and so on into infinity.

       The work was not only backbreaking—try juggling hogsheads of lard and ninety-eight-pound sacks of flour and one-hundred-and-eighty-pound sacks of salt, if you doubt my word—but it was also extremely exacting. There was almost no margin for error. A few ounces too much of this or that, and hundreds of dollars worth of dough would be ruined. It seemed to me that for work as difficult and demanding as this I should get more money.

       I suggested as much to the manager of the place. He looked me up and down coldly. There was a depression coming on, he said, and he had a long waiting list of job applicants. So, if I was at all dissatisfied, if I felt that I wasn't making enough...

       I told him I was entirely satisfied; I loved the job and the pay was more than enough. I apologized humbly for bothering him.

       Now eventually, and indirectly, the job paid me a great deal of money. It provided the source material for numerous trade-journal articles, and the background for my ninth novel, 'Savage Night.' In all, I suppose, I cashed in at the rate of several hundred dollars for every week I spent at the bakery. But that was later—more than twenty years later in the instance of the novel—and it did me no good whatsoever at the time. With rent to pay and with all my other expenses, the twelve dollars I received for each seven-day period was ridiculously inadequate.

       I considered dropping out of the fraternity. But that would be an involved and painfully embarrassing procedure, and besides, I simply couldn't do it. My "brothers" had their faults, as I was ever ready to point out, but poor scholarship was not among them. I had to have their help scholastically. For the time being, at least, it was impossible to do without it. Moreover, I seriously doubted the wisdom of severing relations with a "house" which had many alumni on the faculty.

       Meals were my biggest expense. The hard work gave me a terrific appetite, and it seemed that I could never get enough to eat. Nevertheless, since I could think of no place else to cut down, I cut down on meals. In fact, I practically eliminated them—stuffing myself instead with the various edibles in my stock room. I still get a little ill when I think of some of the messes I put together.

       The basic item of my diet was bread—the "crippled" loaves damaged in the machinery. The garnish (or whatever you want to call it) might be raw frozen eggs and lard, mince meat and malt syrup, or some truly weird concoctions such as cooking oil, chopped chocolate, caraway seeds and raisins. I made myself sandwiches of these things, eating them on the job and sneaking them out when I left. And when my stomach revolted, as it frequently did, I bought it into subjection with stiff cocktails of lemon and vanilla extract.

       I survived in this fashion for several months. Then, shortly after the college mid-term, when I had barely squeaked by the semester examinations, I was stricken with acute appendicitis.

       I was rushed to a hospital. When I emerged from it, some six days later, I was appendix-less, penniless, jobless and considerably in debt. I felt pretty good about the situation. With things that bad, it seemed that they must take a turn for the better. And they did.

Up until then I had scorned anything less than a steady salaried job. Now, since nothing of this kind was available to me, I began taking anything that was offered—a few hours work in one place, an hour or so in another. Some of these odd jobs cost me far more than I earned. As a cafeteria bus boy, for example, I spent sixty hours in paying for a huge tray of dishes which I had broken. Gradually, however, I eliminated such jobs from my agenda and substituted new ones, and finally—and after no great elapse of time—I had several which not only paid reasonably well but also were reasonably to my liking.

       I read papers for the English department. I wrote campus news for the Lincoln 'Journal.' I sold radios on commission. I worked as floorman in a dance hall. All irregularly, yes: seven or eight hours a week on each job. But my total pay aggregated more than I had been making at the bakery, and in my various bustlings about the city I ran across a salaried position. It was in a small department store, one of the midwestern chain of installment-sales houses. The hours were noon to six weekdays and all day Saturday. The pay was a magnificent eighteen dollars a week. I rearranged my classes to fit this schedule, and went to work.

       Since I held on to my other jobs, there was little time for rest or relaxation in the months that followed. I seldom got to bed before midnight, and I had to be up at dawn to make my seven o'clock classes at the university. But I had never slept when I could find anything else to do (I still don't), and there were ample compensations for the unending round of work.

       Mom and Freddie were able to join me. We took a large house, renting out part of the rooms to defray expenses. I studied harder and began to do better in my classes. It was easier to study, now that I was relatively free of financial worry, and with my education costing so much in money and effort I valued it more. I started writing again—free-lancing for myself. And I worked harder at that, too. As a result I sold a serial and several short stories to farm magazines, and placed two stories in the literary quarterly. 'The Prairie Schooner.' Almost overnight, the outlook for the future turned from black to bright.

       I worked at the store as a collection correspondent, and my immediate superior was the credit manager, a man named Durkin. We admired each other greatly. Barely literate himself, he thought I was a wonderful writer. I thought he showed exceptional wisdom in holding this opinion. Our mutual admiration was to end disastrously, but not until many pleasant months had passed. During this time, about the only discord in the smooth harmony of my affairs was a re-encounter with Allie Ivers—the impish, larcenous, fantastic friend of my Texas nonage.

       It happened one quiet summer evening when I was strolling home from work. A cab swept past me as I started across an intersection. It skidded around in a U-turn and headed back in my direction; it headed straight toward me, seemingly out of control, and as I leaped back to the sidewalk, it climbed the curb and followed me. I was frightened out of my wits. Darting back into the street, I began to run for dear life, and I tripped and fell sprawling. The cab drew abreast, and Allie leaned out the window.

       "How terrible," he said. "Such a fine young man to be lying in the gutter!"

       Well, I had always liked Allie, and despite the weird doings which usually resulted from our association, I was glad to see him. So I cursed him out mildly and entered the cab, first making sure that he was carrying no concealed weapons or other items which might involve us with the police.

       Allie pressed a pint of whiskey upon me. Uncorking another for himself, he drove off, bringing me up to date on his affairs. He had left Texas, he said, shortly after I had. The police had had nothing against him, actually, but they had intimated that all parties concerned would be happier if he traveled for a while. And Allie had thought it well to follow their suggestion. He had moved up through Oklahoma and the Midwest, working "the twenties" and other small con rackets. Arriving here in Lincoln well-heeled and under no necessity to "work," he had taken this hack-driving job by way of divertissement. He intended leaving town in the morning. Meanwhile, tonight...

       He outlined his plans for the night's entertainment. I told him, firmly and profanely, he could count me out.

       "What's the matter?" Allie coaxed. "All I want you to do is drive me and my lady friend around. What's wrong with that?"

       "There's everything wrong with it!" I said. "For one thing I don't have a license to drive a hack."

       "So what? I've got a dozen. The guy I bought them from gave me a quantity rate."

       "Now I'm not going to argue with you, Allie," I said. "I'm tickled to death to see you, but I absolutely refuse—"

       Allie wheedled. He reproached me sorrowfully. Was this his one-time protege—the youth he had rescued from the life of a burlesque house candy peddler? Was I so far gone in respectability that I could not do a small favor for an old friend?

       "Just answer me one question," Allie demanded. "Are you going to drive this cab or are you going to be a horse's ass?"

       We drove on, arguing and drinking. I began to waver. It had been almost a year since I had tasted real whiskey. For months I had been a model of hard-working respectability, and the existence was beginning to pall. College was over until the fall term. Why not, now that I had a little free time, make a break with tiresome routine?

       "Well, all right," I said at last. "But no rough stuff, Allie. You've got to promise to keep it clean."

       Allie removed the cap from his head and put it on mine. He promised, as I had asked.

       "You'll have to promise, too," he said. "This is a very refined young lady we're picking up. I'm taking her to the country club dance."

       "You're kidding," I laughed.

       "You'll see," said Allie. "By the way, stop at this drug store, will you? I'm taking her a few cigars."

       I pulled in at the curb. I turned and looked at him, startled. "Cigars! You're taking her some—"

       "Havanas," murmured Allie. "Like I say, she's very refined."

       He was in the drug store for some time, deliberately lingering, I suspect. When, finally, he emerged, I was finishing my first pint and much of my trepidation and curiosity about the expedition had vanished with it.

       He directed me to a particularly execrable section of the city. I drew up at a house he pointed out—a tumble-down, unpainted shack—and Allie debarked again. He remained in the house for about five minutes. He came out with one of the fattest, ugliest women I have even seen.

       Her enormous legs were bare. Her hair frizzled out from her bloated head like the thongs of a mop. She was costumed in tennis shoes (with the toes cut out) and a filthy gray house dress.

       Both she and Allie were smoking cigars.

       He assisted her, waddling, across the yard. Helping her into the seat with a stream of courteous and honeyed patter, he climbed in at her side.

       The door slammed. The rear curtains came down. "James," said Allie. "Take us to the club."

       "The club," I said suavely, and I put the cab into gear.

       The place was several miles out in the country. By the time we arrived, there was a long line of cabs and cars waiting to debouch their passengers at the brilliantly lighted entrance. I fell in at the end of the line. As it moved up, I edged the cab forward with it. We got nearer and nearer the entrance, and from the back seat came sounds of high—very high—revelry.

       I had a pretty good idea of what was under way back there, although I did not realize how far it had progressed. But being very merry by now, I saw no reason to admonish my passengers nor to remind them of their whereabouts. Allie had wanted to come to the club. All right, I had brought him and his lady friend here. The rest was up to them. As I saw it, the "lady" could look no worse than she originally had, whatever her present condition.