The Moth (22 page)

Out Van Buren Street is a bunch of motor courts and hotels, and not far from them two or three cafes for tourists, and not far from them some stores. As to whether we’d raid the restaurant pantries or the stores we hadn’t quite made up our mind, and we were going to be guided mainly by how things looked when we got there. And we no sooner walked up the street than we knew what the answer would be: one of the stores. And why it suited us was that it had no second floor or bedrooms of any kind connected with it. It looked like when they closed it they left it, and we’d have it to ourselves if we could get in there. If there was a burglar alarm we meant to run, but at the same time it didn’t scare us a whole lot. We’d heard plenty of burglar alarms, the time we’d been on the road, and if anything was ever done about any of them it wasn’t while we were there. So that danger we disregarded and had a walk around the block and checked on the little dirt road in back, that ran past all the stores for the delivery of stuff, and marked our place by counting the back doors. In the back window were bars running across, and at the side of the back door what looked like an iron grill, folded up. That was O.K. We figured on stuff like that, and were ready for it. Then we went off to take it easy so we wouldn’t be dead on our feet when the time came to go in there. We didn’t at any time hang around, or stop and take long ganders, or attract attention in any way. We walked fast, with good long steps, like we were headed somewhere, and when we came to a corner we turned it sharp, like we knew where we were going and meant to get there. Just the same, by dark we had it all, and found a place we could stand and watch.

By eight o’clock lights began going out in the motor courts, by nine our place was dark, by ten the restaurants were closing, and all you could hear was radios in the bars. “O.K., Buck, it’s time.”

“It’s now if we’re going to.”

“I’ll take your spike.” We had remembered those railroad spikes the first night, what we’d been able to do with them, and got ourselves one. We figured it was as good as a jimmy.

We slid down Van Buren and then into the cross street, to take a flash at the alley. We didn’t see anything. Then I stood by the alley and he went back to Van Buren. He looked up and down, lifted his hat, smoothed his hair, began walking back and forth like he was waiting for a bus. The hat meant all clear. I went down the alley, turned in back of the store, got out my spike. By now the iron lattice was in place, with two padlocks holding it, top and bottom, and I meant to break them, if I could. But first I had a look at the bars on the window, and felt them with my thumb. You could hardly believe it, but all that was holding them was screws. I mean, the end of each bar had been flattened and an eye punched in it, and the screw driven in through that. On my jackknife was a screw driver, small but stubby and strong. I opened it up and shoved it against one of the screws. It turned. In about five minutes I had the three lower bars off. I tried the window. It was locked. I jammed the spike between the sashes and shoved. Something cracked inside. I raised the window and stepped in. My bowels were fluttering and I wondered if the lights would snap on and a face behind a gun tell me to put them up and keep them up. Then somewhere in the distance a bell began ringing. It stopped. I got myself under control and looked around.

It was just a little store, with canned stuff, open crates with vegetables and fruit, and packages of stuff like crackers. I could see well enough, by the light from the street, so I got out my sack, where it was folded against my stomach, and went to work. The first thing that was wanted, what Buck and Hosey talked so much about, was chicken. They wanted the boiled chicken that comes in a wedge-shape can, and I began hunting for it. I was in the place altogether, Buck told me later, exactly twenty-five minutes, by a clock on Van Buren Street. But if I tell it like I remember it, I was in there twenty-five years, with the lights going dim every so often where they were executing somebody back of the little green door, feet tramping over my head, where the trusties were marching in from the farm, and me there in my dark little cell with bars over the window, getting a little stir-happy by now on account of the time I’d served. After ten or fifteen years I thought to hell with chicken, drop something in the sack and get out. I grabbed cans of beans, mock turtle soup, even beets, on top of raw potatoes, oranges, bread, soap, anything. Then all of a sudden it was like a football game, with the first quarter nearly up, the flutters gone, and my mind clicking. My hands began reaching for exactly what I ought to have, I took three chickens in cans, then peas, carrots, and corn. I took pears, for dessert. I found the icebox and dropped butter in. I took a quart of milk and another of cream. There were special shelves with shoe polish, fly swatter, and stuff like that. I looked for razor blades, found a whole box, dropped that in. My thumb snagged a beer opener. I dropped that in, began looking for beer, found it, dropped a dozen cans in. I found instant coffee, condensed milk, and a sack of sugar, and dropped them in. I found a sack of salt and dropped that in, and a can of pepper.

All that I did so fast I’d breathe and then not breathe, but pretty soon I knew I was done and started for the window. Then I saw the cash register. All that stuff about taking only food ran through my head, and even while it was running I dumped the sack on the floor and reached for my spike. I jammed it in a crack and bore down and something popped. I yanked open the drawer. It was empty. I began growling curses like a wild man. I picked up the sack again and started out and then my eye caught the cash drawer, under the counter, that hardly anybody would see unless they’d worked around some business place like a garage. I tried it and it was locked. I jammed the spike in and nothing gave. I reached under for keys. You don’t see them when the storekeeper makes change, but they’re there just the same, four or five or six finger taps that work on springs and have to be pressed in combination before the lock releases. On this drawer there were six, and that meant probably a three-key combination. I tried 1-2-3, 1-3-4, 1-4-5, and 1-5-6, and inside of me something kept yelling to get out and get out quick, but my fingers kept working the combos and my head kept ticking them off, so I wouldn’t waste time trying one twice. I started the two-series. The drawer pulled open and I saw steel. It was a metal box, and it was locked. I set it up on its edge, held the spike on the lock, and used a box opener that was under the counter as a hammer. There was a snap and the lid was off. Inside was money. I could see ones and fives and tens, but I didn’t stop to count and didn’t take the silver. I stuffed the bills into my pocket, picked up the sack, and stepped out the window. I closed it, then looked around. I didn’t see anything, slipped into the alley, and down to the cross street. On Van Buren, Buck was still there, waiting for his bus. I waved and he ran toward me. “God, Jack, I thought you’d never come.”

“Had to find stuff.”

“Gee, you’re loaded. We better split it, so we can make time.”

“Not here. Let’s hit for the river.”

“O.K. Come on.”

The river is one of those Western jobs, ten parts sand and rock and gravel to one part water, but it wasn’t too rough, and we figured we could follow it easy enough, and we wouldn’t meet anybody. We hit it in a half hour and began looking for Hosey. He was to light up a fire, so we’d have a torch to steer by. But we walked and walked and routed up about forty things that rustled and hissed and scrabbled, and still nothing but black ahead. “Jack.”

“Yes, Buck?”

“Did he say
upriver?”

“Not once but twenty-eight times.”

“Does the bastard know upriver from down?”

“Well, feel the water! You can feel how it—”

“Yeah, Jack, I can and you can. But can
he?”

I’d say we went two miles, feeling like twenty. And we saw a flicker of yellow, and then we could hear him: “Yay Jack, yay Buck!”

“... Well, why didn’t you pick Alaska?”

“It’s perfect. It’s a—jungle! Look over top of you!”

Overhead was a bridge that made shelter, where the railroad went over the river. That it was worth two miles of walking, by the dark of the moon, I couldn’t see, but I didn’t argue about it. He had cans, big ones, for boiling, and little ones, to eat out of, and plenty of wood. We fed up the fire, set water on to heat, and pretty soon put the chicken, soup, peas, and other stuff in, still in the cans. Then in one can I made coffee. When I put that instant stuff in, with sugar and cream, they began gulping it without even waiting for the other stuff. Then we opened the soup and drank a can apiece. Then we had the chicken, but one can was all we were able to get away with. Then we had peas, carrots, and corn, and canned peaches. Then I broke out what I hadn’t said anything to them about. That was the beer, that I had stashed in the running water so it would get cold. They took one look at those cans and began mumbling those cusswords that are little prayers of thanks in tough guys’ language. I cut into three, and we sat there with the foam sliding all over our mouths, and the cold beer sliding down our throats. Buck began to mumble how they both owed plenty to me. Hosey said they sure did. I said thanks, pals, thanks.

By then it was daylight, so when a train came along we slid out from under to have a look at her. She was a passenger train, westbound, all curtained in, but on the observation platform, smoking a cigar, in pajamas, dressing gown, and slippers, was a fat guy. We waved, and he stared, like he couldn’t believe his eyes: Then he leaned forward, held on to the brass rail, and spit at us. “... That dirty son of a bitch.”

“O.K., Buck, tell him some more.”

“God, boys, would I get like that? First they throw you out, then they spit in your goddam eye. That fat slob! No, not one of the three of us would get like that. At least we’d give a guy a break. At least if he waved at us we’d wave back. But that fat bastard couldn’t even give us a wave. Not even a kind look.”

We went back to the fire and began talking what we’d do if we had it good and three guys off the road came in and asked for a break. We said we’d feed them and bed them down till they were ready to talk and then line it up for them to get a job. In the middle of that Buck took off his coat, crawled inside his gunny sack, stuck the coat under his head and went to sleep. Then Hosey did. Then I did, or tried to. But all the time the beer and chicken and the rest of it were taking me down I kept thinking about the money and why I hadn’t said anything about it. It seemed to me I was as close to them as brothers. And yet I was mortally afraid to open my trap about it.

Around noon we built up more fire, heated some beans, made some coffee, filled ourselves with all we could hold, and then began to boil up. I boiled everything, even my suit. What to do with the money I didn’t know but I climbed the bank, stuck it in an angle of the abutment, put a stone over it, and came on back. We worked on ourselves, first in the cold water in the river, then in the hot that we kept boiling, until we were pretty clean. The soap came in as handy as anything, and we took turns with it, scrubbing and slopping and lathering with it, until it was just a sliver and then even that was gone. Around four maybe, our clothes were dry and we got dressed. But along toward sundown dogs began barking downriver, and if there’s one thing a real hobo hates worse than work it’s dogs. Hosey began to get nervous and it was easy to see if we were going to keep him we had to move. We talked about where we’d move to, and he was scared to death to go through Phoenix again on a train, as he said they’d “be laying for us, sure.” And yet we all wanted to beat West, instead of going back East, on account of the weather. Finally we decided to break up, each one to hitchhike separately by road, and meet again in Shorty Lee’s jungle in Yuma, that Hosey said was the best in the U. S., bar none. So that’s what we did. We had to break up, because three guys together would scare any private driver to death, and on the trucks, on account of a new no-rider clause in the insurance, there was no chance at all. There had been trouble, hijacking and stuff like that, so the companies put it in the policies that if riders were aboard, all bets were off. Kind of rugged for Mr. Thumb, but it gives you an idea how things were.

Me, though, I caught a through bus. The driver looked at me funny, but I knew I didn’t stink so I looked right back, and when I got out my roll that talked. It was a day coach, not very full, so there was plenty of room on the wide seat at the rear. I stretched out, got comfortable, and counted my money. There were two or three tens, some fives, and the rest ones, altogether around ninety dollars. I shoved it in my pocket again, then sat there, staring out at the road where it was rolling out behind, working on something that had been bothering me all day: Why had I hid that money? Why hadn’t I said something about it to Buck and Hosey? Why hadn’t I cut them in? Here they were, maybe not the buddies I would have picked some night when I was all dressed up in a dinner coat three years before, but some kind of buddies, and what was pretty important too, all the buddies I had. And yet, at my first stroke of luck, I had ratted on them one hundred per cent, like any real hobo. I began thinking about something else: Why had I passed up the silver? So nobody could hear it clink, seemed to be the answer. Yeah, but who? A cop, when I was toting that sack, if he ever got near enough to hear something clink, would already have nabbed me. Once more, it spelled Buck and Hosey. And at last I admitted to myself, what had been slewing around in the back of my head: I had kept quiet, I had even passed up the silver, because I was afraid of them. On food, as Hosey had said, there’d be nothing to tell. At most it would be thirty days in jail, or more likely ten, serve your time or vag out by sundown. But money was different. Buddies or no buddies, rat or no rat, I’d never put myself in their power by letting them in on it. Or at least so it seemed at that time.

Shorty Lee, the hobo’s friend, had fixed up a jungle that was a lulu, all right, and though I wouldn’t exactly trade off my membership in the University Club to get into it, it did things to you that somebody had put up a couple of shacks that guys could sleep in, got them some clean pots to cook in, bricks for their fires, and connected up a shower so they could get clean and a water tap so they could drink. I didn’t go there right away, though. I hit town around ten o’clock, checked in at a little hotel down by the river, then went to a cafe for dinner. It was just a cheap cafe, like a million of them all over the country that had opened up since Prohibition got repealed. It was the first time in my life I’d ever been in a bar. In Baltimore, they had served liquor, of course, but it had come in a cup and had no name and you drank it quick. I ordered a Martini, with steak, fried potatoes and coffee. Then I noticed two girls on stools, talking to each other and not with anybody that I could see. They were just Western barflies, in checked blouses, dungaree pants, and stitched boots, but not so bad either. One of them saw me, looked sharp, then looked again. I looked back. Then I began to wonder if she was having any effect on me. I mean, I was trying to figure if it was getting anywhere, this campaign Buck and I had started by stealing some grub. Next thing I knew the waiter was shaking me to wake up and eat. Looked like I had some little way to go. I felt my money. It was still there.