Some Came Running (7 page)

“He sounds like a writer,” Dave said. “He has all the symptoms.”

“Him?” Dewey said. “He’s not a writer. I’ve known him all my life.”

“You mean he couldn’t be a writer because you knew him all his life?” Dave asked.

Dewey grinned sheepishly, and ducked his head. “I guess that did sound—insular.” It was an unexpected, strange word for him to use. “No, I meant he just didn’t seem like a writer.”

“How should a writer seem?” Dave said.

“Oh, you know. Different.”

“Strange?” Dave said.

“Yeah. Strange. Sort of,” Dewey grinned, and then picked up his beer bottle and drank, and Dave realized suddenly that he was not going to say any more; and he knew simultaneously that ’Bama would not say anything more, either, about him or his writing. Because men who lived their kind of lives learned early that incuriosity is, at certain times, just as important or more so than curiosity is at others.

“How come they’ll sell him beer?” Dave said, nodding at the door, and Dewey grinned with that look of malicious relish that he was beginning at last to recognize. It came whenever anything was said or done against the current moral code.

“Because officially he’s twenty-two,” Dewey grinned. “He fixed his driver’s license up himself last year when he was nineteen. Changed it to twenty-one. He says now he’ll be two years older than himself the rest of his whole life.”

Dave laughed. He could hear ’Bama horse-walking lazily up behind him. “They really know how old he is, don’t they?”

“Sure but hell, they don’t care. Long as the law can’t get them. See, he plays a trombone in a dance band around here, that’s how he gets spending money. His old lady’s got a fair chunk of dough, I guess. But I guess she holds on to it. Her husband’s dead. Owned his own company during the oil boom.”

“The trombone accounts for the long hair,” Dave said, getting up to let the tall man in. Dewey nodded.

’Bama did not sit down. Instead he leaned on his hands on the edge of the table, one leg stiff throwing the buttocks out so far that they seemed disjointed, and looked down into the booth. “Well, are you guys all through di-sectin love and women?” he sneered.

“All through,” Dewey said. “Sit down.”

’Bama shook his head. “Where’s the kid? He didn’t get mad, did he?” There was almost a tone of anxiety in his voice.

“Naw, he just left.”

“Without payin for them beers,” Hubie said.

“He never does,” ’Bama said.

“Come on, sit down,” Dewey said.

’Bama shook his head, grinning. “I got to make my rounds.” Then he seemed to think better of it and slid into the booth. “Wait just a minute,” he said to Dave. “What’s on the agenda for tonight?” he asked the others. “There’s a good hockey game on over at Indianapolis.”

“Yeah and I wanted to see that game,” Dewey said.

Hubie poked him in the arm. “We’ve got that paperin job we’ve got to get at, Dewey,” he cautioned. “That job’s past overdue now.”

Dewey looked at him disgustedly.

“Well, you told me to remind you.”

“He’s right,” Dewey said reluctantly. “We got this papering job I’ve been putting off for a month. The people are beginning to get on me.”

“Then I guess you stay home,” ’Bama said. “Anyway, we don’t have to decide it now. You’ll be down at Smitty’s later, won’t you? I thought we might go over there to the game and take Dave here with us.”

Once again, Dave had that curious feeling of something conspicuous that he couldn’t put his finger on, in the way ’Bama used his first name so familiarly.

“Can you get me a woman, too?” he asked suddenly.

“Hell yes, two if you want ’em,” ’Bama sneered. “What flavor do you prefer?”

“One’s plenty,” Dave grinned. “But I really can’t go. I’m supposed to go out to Frank’s for dinner, and I won’t get away from there in time to make the game.”

’Bama shrugged. “It don’t matter if we go to the game or not. The thing is to go. They got some nice after-hours places over there.”

“I’ll try to get away by ten,” Dave said. His palms felt sweaty at the thought of a woman. He hadn’t thought to stock up a little, back in Chicago. And he had had a bad afternoon. A woman helped. For a while, at least.

“All right, let’s figure I’ll meet you at the Athletic Club,” ’Bama said. “That’s a poolroom up the street.”

“Okay,” Dave said, but suddenly depressed at the prospect, “and if I’m not there, you go ahead.”

“Right,” ’Bama said, and made as if to get out of the booth. He seemed jitterish to get going. “And we’ll go from there to Smitty’s.” He got out so Dave could sit back down. He did not have a topcoat.

“Where’s Smitty’s?” Dave said.

“Another bar. Out north.” ’Bama was now standing motionless, his hands jammed under his coat skirts in his pants pockets, looking out through the window up front at the wet streets and damp cars, the shining Stetson still just exactly where it had been ever since he’d pushed it back with his thumb when Dave first met him.

Dave had again that strange feeling of having been dumped unceremoniously into the middle of this town, right square into the middle of its personalities and conflicts and allegiances. Dumped like a chunk of beef, down into a yowling pack of cats. He sat down.

“It’s funny,” he said aloud, “me showing up back here, and meeting people, and finding out so much about so many others. I never had any idea there was as much going on in this town as there seems to be.”

“Oh, this is quite a town,” Dewey said almost protectively. “There’s a lot more goes on in this town than an out-of-stater drivin through might think. And sooner or later, this place right here is where it all winds up and where the business all gets done.

“Unless of course you belong to the Elks or Country Club,” he said.

“Here or Smitty’s,” the standing ’Bama said indifferently.

“There don’t seem to be much winding up here right now,” Dave said.

“This is working hours now. Wait’ll this afternoon. And after supper,” Dewey said. “This is where your old man hangs out most the time,” he added.

Dave grinned. “Pop?” Again he felt that pointless desire to laugh. “Has he changed his name yet?” he asked.

“Nope, not yet,” Dewey said. “It’s still Herschmidt. Old Man Herschmidt, that’s what everybody calls him.”

“I figured he hadn’t,” Dave said. “I bet that makes Frank happy,” he said.

“I bet it does,” Dewey said. “After he went to all that trouble to get it changed. Why the hell would anybody want to get his name changed? I might could see changing it to something different maybe. But to change it from Herschmidt to Hirsh!”

“He did that when Pop ran off,” Dave said. He grinned. “I guess he thought it sounded higher class. And you say this is where the old man hangs out, hunh?”

“Yeah. Whenever he can scrounge up the price of a beer,” Dewey said. “He’s on the old age pension now.”

What a family Dave thought, and I’m part of it.

“As a matter of fact,” ’Bama said from where he still stood motionless, “I think that’s him coming in the door right now.” He took his hands out of his pockets and turned and leaned on his arm over the booth back facing the room, impassive, at ease, and all ready to watch.

Oh no, Dave thought, Not now. Not right on top of all that other. All the old hate, and the child’s hurt inability to understand, that was all gone. But what a fitting climax to a lovely afternoon and he even had an audience.

He had not been watching, and his first inclination was to jerk his head around to look. But something in ’Bama’s voice stopped him, some deliberate understatement. Casually, after a moment, he turned his head toward the door, where the stooped stringy looking figure dressed in overalls, work shoes, high railroader’s cap and a red-blanket mackinaw was coming in out of the light. The others were looking, too.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard his first name,” Dewey said. “What is it?”

“Victor,” Dave said, watching his father. “But I don’t think I ever heard him called that,” he said. “Except maybe by the old lady when I was a kid.”

“I’d never heard it,” Dewey said. “I guess I told you they still weren’t speaking, didn’t I?”

‘Yeah,” Dave said, “But then that’s been goin on for twenty years or more. They weren’t speaking when I left here.”

His father stumped straight to the bar without looking around, took off the mackinaw, and sat down. He ordered a beer. Under the overall straps, he wore a light blue workman’s shirt, scrupulously clean. In fact, all his clothes were clean Dave noted with surprise, all except the weathered red mackinaw. They didn’t look like the clothes of a workingman. But then why should they? he thought, he’s been living on the pension almost ten years.

It was hard to believe, sitting here and looking at him (and aware of the others watching) that this old man was his father, his flesh-and-blood parent. They really had had so very little to do with each other, and Dave didn’t really feel anything about him, nothing at all. Nothing except that the thought of the word
father,
the abstraction, sent blood pounding against the backs of his eyeballs. Thinking about the old man coldly was one thing, but seeing him in front of you was another, not so objective.

Of course, part of the emotion was due to knowing these three men were sitting here watching him intently.

Actually, to all intents and purposes, he had never really had a father. From the time he was in the fifth grade, Brother Frank had been the only father he had had. But even before that he had known he hadn’t had one. A lot of times, he had surprised upon the face of the old man that look that he, the child, couldn’t make out but intuitively understood. Later on, he, the adult, had seen the same look on the faces of other men a great many more than our civic leaders are willing to admit, he thought, and remembering had been able to understand it. They these other men would sit and tell him all about their wonderful sons and daughters and display their photographs, and upon their faces would be the same look that once had been on the old man’s face, when he would sit around in the flimsy (but comfortable) workingman’s house in the evening after work and stare at his six offspring with a look of bewildered ire as if wondering where they had come from and what connection could they possibly have with such a simple thing as a Saturday night lay.

But at least, Dave thought, he didn’t pretend to love us with that mealy-mouthed virtue, or put on pompous airs about his family responsibility, or expect us to love him—all of which Brother Frank had immediately done when, hating them all for cramping him, he had been forced by their existence and by the circumstances of social approval to become the family’s sole caretaker.

From the corner of his eye, he became aware of Dewey Cole opening his mouth to say something further and he turned back to him.

“What I don’t see is why they never got a divorce,” Dewey said.

For a moment, Dave couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. He had to think back, way back, to what he himself had last said, before he realized that Dewey was only carrying on the conversation.

“Why?” he said. “They both seem to be satisfied as they are. Besides, the old lady don’t believe in it.”

“Hell, I thought that was only Catholics,” Dewey grinned. “That’s no kind of woman to be married to.”

“There used to be a lot more of them,” Dave said. “They were just products of their time. I think I’ll go over and say hello to the old son of a bitch,” he said with a grin, and got up, and walked over to the bar. He said the first thing that came into his head. “Hello. How’s the welding business?”

The old man at the bar, who resembled a caricature of his father, looked up at him piercingly. He is over seventy, Dave thought. He had been stocky once, but age had wizened him and made him look birdlike. The long scrawny neck and beak of a German nose and the unwinking eyes under the domed railroader’s cap all made him look like a topknotted kingfisher.

“I ain’t in it no more,” he said. “I’m retard.” If he recognized his youngest son, he hid it well. Even his bushy eyebrows looked feathery.

“Do you remember me?” Dave asked grinning, as if talking to a child. “You know who I am?”

“I remember ye,” his father said. “Well, whatta you want?”

“I just got in town. Thought I’d say hello.”

“All right, hello. If it’s money ye want, I ain’t got any. If you’re wantin me to change my name, I won’t do it. Now, what else do you want?”

“Nothing,” Dave said. “Not a thing. I don’t want anything, I just thought I’d buy you a beer.”

The old man jerked his head at the gray-headed bartender. “Tell him. He’s the one you’ll have to pay for it.”

“Bring Mr Herschmidt here another beer,” Dave said, “and put it on my check.”

“And ye can tell Frank I’m never goin to change it. lt’d give the son of a bitch too much pleasure. He-he.” Greedily he pulled at the beer he obviously had been nursing.

“All right, I’ll tell him,” Dave said. “I’m goin out to his house tonight.”

“You are, hunh? Then tell him for me that the next time he sends somebody around they should buy me a pint of whiskey instead of a beer and not make it so obvious.”

“Okay,” Dave said, “I’ll tell him.”

“Don’t baby me, you son of a bitch,” his father said. He was watching Dave in the mirror, grinning malevolently, like a predatory bird. “It won’t do you any damn good. Agnes already tried it.”

“Okay, Pop,” Dave said lightly. “Get him another beer when he wants it,” he said to the gray head, who was standing down the bar listening without interest. “And give him a fifth of whiskey.”

“Go to hell,” his father said. “You just tell Frankie what I said. He-he.” Frankie was a nickname Frank hated.

“I’ll tell him,” Dave grinned. His face was flushed. He turned away from the bar. “See you later.”

The old man took another long drink of his beer without looking around.

Dave sat down in the booth and grinning looked at the three men and shook his head ruefully. “What’re you gonna do?”

It was a reasonably good act. They all grinned back. There wasn’t really any malice in them. They had just wanted to watch.

“He’s a mean old bastard,” ’Bama said from where he leaned against the booth, as if voicing Dave’s thought. “Well, I got to go and make my rounds.” He straightened up and turned, and then stopped and put his hands in his pants pockets and stood motionless facing the window, like he had done before.