Some Came Running (104 page)

“Baloney!” Dave derided. “You could do any damned thing you set your mind on. You’ve certainly got a talent for gambling, that’s for sure.”

“You think I’d be livin in this little old one-hoss town if I
really
had a talent for
real
gambling?” ’Bama said.

“No,” he said seriously, “I ain’t got any kind of talent, really. Not enough, anyway, to make it really something—uh—”

“Creative?” Dave said, smothering a grin.

“Yas. Creative,” ’Bama said, “and don’t laugh, you son of a bitch.”

“I’m not.”

“I’ve thought a lot about it. I’m pretty good at a lot of things, but not
really
good at any of them.”

“You could do any damned thing you wanted to do,” Dave said. “Anybody can. If they just want to do it bad enough.”

“Well, then maybe I just don’t want to do any one thing bad enough,” ’Bama said. “But I don’t believe that. I believe a talent’s born into a person. And I just wasn’t born with any.”

“You know, I’m going to have to take you over to the Frenches with me sometime,” Dave said. “You’d like them, ’Bama.”

“Yeh,” the tall man said. “Sometime we’ll have to go over there. But I just wanted to tell you the story of what happened to Jimmer Thurston so as to explain to you why I done what I done to Doris and why I don’t intend to ever let no woman ever run me. I made up my mind a long time ago that if I ever got married it would be to a woman that I could run instead of her running me.”

“And what kind of woman would that be?” Dave grinned.

“Well, they got to be two things,” ’Bama said. “First, they got to be dumb. I mean really dumb. And second, they got to be very very respectable; and it’s better if they’re real religious, too. Then there’s another third thing: They got to be used to takin orders from the menfolks, so that they believe that’s the way things ought to be.”

“Passive,” Dave grinned. “True female passivity. And just where the hell do you find a woman like that today?”

“Well, there’s not very many of them, I’ll grant you that. There used to be a lot more of them.”

“If you mean your Southern belles,” Dave grinned, “I’m afraid I’m forced to disagree with you. I’ve read too many histories to ever believe that.”

“You’ve only read about the rich ones,” ’Bama said, “not the pore ones. If you want an example, Stonewall Jackson’s wife was a good example of the kind I mean. She—”

“Let’s don’t get off on the Civil War,” Dave grinned. “I’ve got to get to work sometime today.”

“Well, that’s the kind,” ’Bama said. “And I guess you got to add one more qualification: They can’t have been rich before you met them. That’s the kind I married, when I finally found one.”

“What about her?” Dave said, emboldened a little. They had never again spoken of her, since that first day he had met the Southerner. “What about your wife?”

“What about her?” ’Bama said. “She’s the type of woman I been describin to you, that’s all.”

“But don’t she ever get mad at you? Don’t she ever eat you out?”

“Why should she?” ’Bama said. “I take good care of her; she don’t never want for nothin. And she’s got her religion, and her farm she makes money on. And she’s got her kids. When a woman has her kids, she don’t really give a damn about the old man anymore; because she’s got from him what she really wanted from him—long as he supports her. Ask any man whose wife has ever had some.” He grinned. “Her and me trust each other, and we’re real good friends—though we don’t neither one agree a damn with what the other believes or does.”

“It’s unbelievable,” Dave said. “To hear you tell it, anyway, she sounds just about like the perfect wife.”

“She is,” ’Bama grinned. “Hell, I picked her myself. I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll have to be goin down there sometime soon. Whyn’t you come down with me.

“Look!” he said. “Armistice Day ain’t far off, and the hunting season opens. You come down to the farm with me and meet her and judge for yoreself, and we’ll stay a day or two and do some huntin. There’s some mighty good quail country down there.

“Then,” he went on, “then we’ll go up north where I know where there’s some good pheasant country and hunt pheasant a couple of days. What do you say? You can afford to take a few days off, can’t you?”

“Sure,” Dave said, “hell, yes! I haven’t done any hunting since back before the war.”

“Well, we can go out here in town to the Skeet and Trap Club, of which I am a member,” ’Bama grinned, “and practice up a little before we go. You ever shoot skeet?”

“Just a few times.”

“We can have ourselves a nice regular little huntin vacation,” ’Bama said, suddenly enthusiastic.

“And anyway,” he grinned, “I would like to get yore opinion—yore professional, writer’s opinion—of my wife.”

“You got yourself a deal,” Dave said. “But there’s just one other thing, buddy,” he said, grinning. “By God, don’t you ever jump on me about bringing Ginnie Moorehead down here as long as that pig Doris of yours keeps on hanging around here!”

It was a touché. ’Bama grinned, wryly. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t. I was only tryin to keep you from losin yore reputation was all. And, to keep you from gettin yoreself in a position where none of the rest of the brassiere factory gals won’t go out with you.”

“Well, just stop worryin about it.”

“Okay, I will,” ’Bama said with that same wry grin. “Just take one of the other ones out, too, once in a while to protect yoreself.”

“I will,” Dave grinned.

And he meant it, too. But sitting that evening in Smitty’s, after he had left ’Bama and Doris in the house, he decided it just wasn’t worth the effort—not tonight anyway—and decided to put it off until another time. It was so much easier to just go get Ginnie, no buildup and no fuss, when he needed anyone at all.

And tonight he needed somebody. Because now that he had turned her proposition down—and was still glad he had—he nevertheless found himself, thinking about Doris Fredric and wishing now that he had taken her on, though he knew just as clearly that if the opportunity ever came up again he would still turn it down, just as he had the first time. And then brood over it, he said to himself, grinning, God! If she had only kept her damned mouth shut . . .

After sitting with Dewey and Lois Wallup and Hubie and Martha Garvey—and with Ginnie and Mildred, who were there with them—for a while, he went to the phone and called ’Bama at the house. ’Bama had said he would meet him later at the Eagles.

“Is your friend and mine still there?” he said when ’Bama answered.

“Yeah,” ’Bama said. “Why?”

“What do you say we just call off the game tonight, then? I’m a little bit worked up myself, it appears like.”

He heard a thin chuckle over the phone. “Preyin on yore mind a little bit now, hunh?”

“Oh no. Not exactly. Well, what do you say?”

“Well—okay. Just as well, in fact.” Then he half-muffled the phone and Dave heard dimly, in an amused tone: “Now damn it, let me alone for a minute.”

“I’m bringin the fat one down with me,” Dave said.

“Yeh? Well, okay,” ’Bama said. “It’s yore dong.”

“Right,” Dave said. “See you in the morning then.”

He hung up and went back to the table to get Old Ginnie, whom he had not asked yet until he had checked with ’Bama that it would not be discommoding him any.

H
E REALLY HAD INTENDED
to take out more of the brassiere factory girls. He just kept putting it off, was all. He even went so far as to ask different ones of them out, but almost always they already had dates for that particular night, or else didn’t feel like going out. And in point of fact, he did have a rather short-lived affair with Mildred Pierce in late November and early December. But then Mildred got interested in another guy—one of the younger laborers who worked in the Sternutol plant—and he himself was often busy nights either gambling with ’Bama or going over to Gwen French’s for consultations, and the thing just kind of died stillborn for lack of its own enthusiasm.

Then, too, it was obvious that Mildred had always felt a little uneasy about going out with him on account of Ginnie, and he learned later on that Ginnie had gone and talked to her about it and had cried. That was shortly before Mildred had started going out with the young guy from the Sternutol whom, Dave was astonished to find, she soon married quite happily.

Most of the brassiere factory girls came from one of two sections in town, either from the northeast corner back of Smitty’s, or else from the southeast corner, which was clustered around the Sternutol Chemical plant. Both corresponded to the tenement sections of a city. The houses got progressively poorer the closer you approached the edge of town until when you reached the very outskirts they were little better than just shacks. Consequently, most of the brassiere factory girls could only hope to marry someone who worked for the Sternutol or one of the other two plants in Parkman—as Mildred had finally managed to do. That was, in fact, Lois Wallup’s trouble with Dewey Cole; while Dewey was of the proper class for her he was not the marrying and breeding kind as he should be expected to be; but Lois could never quite get used to this. And as a result, she remained his girl but unmarried.

One night when there had been a particularly unrestrained drinking orgy at the house, Dave had staggered out with an equally drunken Ginnie onto the patio porch. Half drunk, and half asleep, he had lain and listened dimly to Dewey and Lois quarreling in the kitchen about this, and as he lay listening

Lois had begun to cry. She could not understand why Dewey refused to marry her; and Dewey was making it volubly plain to her that he did not intend to. And Lois, weeping, could only say over and over “I want a home for my two kids!” It was, for everybody, always a reminder of the war and her husband who had been killed in it. Lying where he was, drugged by liquor and sex, Dave’s heart suddenly went out to her—went out to her and Dewey both. And he suddenly had a strange feeling that there was something dangerous hanging over all of them there. It was the first time he could ever remember having had that particular feeling, but he was to have it often enough again later on and when he did, he could always remember clearly with some strange kind of terror back to that moment when he had first had it. Although, of course, there were plenty of times when he did not have it at all or even think of it. He could never discover any psychological reason for it.

He never did know just exactly when he came to be regarded universally as Ginnie’s “boyfriend.” If there was any exact point, it must have come some time after the little affair he had with Mildred Pierce—which itself had come after the trip down to ’Bama’s farm. As far as he himself was concerned, he was
not
Ginnie’s “boyfriend,” and nothing anybody else thought or said made a damn bit of difference. He was simply a guy who was sleeping with her because he was either too shy, or else too lazy, to work up something else. By that time, Ginnie had already told him about having gone to Mildred Bell née Pierce and cried to her about him, and this amused and even flattered him a little. She told him she did it because she loved him so and was afraid he was not going to ask her out anymore, and this doubly amused him.

The trip down to ’Bama’s farm was a delightful experience, if not very much of a revelation about ’Bama’s wife. Apparently, as far as Dave could discover, she was just exactly what ’Bama had said and he was forced to tell ’Bama he had to agree with him entirely.

They started late one afternoon, November 11, throwing a bunch of old clothes and a game bag into the back seat of the Packard with a pair of ’Bama’s guns, and just taking off. He had seen to it that Dave got himself a pair of good hunting boots—which according to him was the only special equipment needed, except for a gun. It was a fine day for it, bright blue and sunny, with a few high cumulus sailing slowly along like stately ships, warm in the sun, a little chill in the shade, all of it together making everything seem unexcitable, making the world itself seem as though it was actually truly secure. They drove along slowly, out of town, and then down the Route 1 highway south. The road to the Dark Bend River section in the south and southeast end of the county angled off to the left just outside the little village of New Lebanon to the south.

’Bama had acquired his Dark Bend farm (he explained to Dave as they drove along) on a good deal two years before the war. Run-down, uncared-for, less than a third of it was level enough to be tillable and what was, was worn out by generations of heavy corn farming that took everything out of the soil and put nothing back. In all, he had 160 tillable acres out of a 480-acre farm, and for those two years before the war, he had worked at building it back up, and while he was gone in the Army, his wife had carried on the work.

“Hell, I could have been let off as a farmer,” he said with a thin-lipped grin. “Only I didn’t have any relatives or good friends on the draft board—and I didn’t belong to the same caste—like the important people’s sons who got deferments.”

“Why didn’t you ask them?”

“Ask them?” ’Bama said with his most caustic sneer.

It was during the war, when he himself got drafted, that they had taken on the Alabama cropper, a one-eyed distant cousin of his wife’s who had been farming down around Birmingham, and he and his family had been with them ever since.

“He’s a hell of a good banjo player,” ’Bama grinned, “and there were two old houses on the place anyway.”

Dave did not know, from all of this, just what kind of a place he expected to see; but it was certainly nothing at all like what he actually did see, as first they drove down into a wide, thickly wooded hollow, crossed on an old wooden bridge the tumbling creek that ran through its bottom, and then came up on the other side.

“There it is,” ’Bama said.

About 150 yards back off the road, up at the top along the same low ridge they occupied, was a large white fresh-painted frame house three stories high with a two-story Southern Colonial colonnade across the front, set in a thin grove of massive, old bottom oaks under which a ten- or twelve-year-old boy toiled raking leaves on the well-kept grass. A quarter of a mile further on behind it stood another house almost exactly like it but smaller, its colonnade only one story high. Between them, but at a low point in the ridge was a large, squat, red fresh-painted barn that dwarfed them both. And from the barn toward both the houses stretched other outbuildings, and pens, and corrals, all painted white.