You Play the Black & the Red Comes Up Up (15 page)

I couldn't stop thinking about Sheila.

LOVE LETTER

I
t had been my night to work, and I sat up on top of the chute long after the place closed.

I
didn't want to go home,
I
couldn't go back there and see Mamie, and then lay there listening to her breathing in her sleep.

I just sat there on the cot, looking out over the darkness of the ocean and now hearing the waves plain. I had got like Sheila. I was never tired of looking out there and watching the sea and the lights on the gambling-ship. If was never the same, the sea. It was always changing.

Then
I
heard some feet coming slow up the wooden steps, and Mamie was there.

"Hello," X said. "How did you get up here?"

'"Walked," she said. "I was parked down the end of the pier and everyone came off and you didn't, sol figured you must still be up here. What are you doing?"

I thought,
Now she's begun to spy on me.
She's on to me, and she's going to watch me every minute.

I said, "I'm just getting a little fresh air."

"I should think you get plenty of that up here."

"Well, I look at the view, too."

"Say, it is a swell view at that. Move over."

She plumped down beside me on the cot and we sat there, with me thinking that I would give anything if it were Sheila beside me and not Mamie. Thinking of Sheila made me hate Mamie. I hated the way she breathed loud from coming up the stairs, and the way her voice was high and sort of hard, and the way her face would get red and shiny from sweat.

And I wished and wished to God it was Sheila beside me, Sitting quiet like she often did, arid just being.

If it had just been me alone, I could have taken it on the lam and taken a chance on the caps ever finding me for the holdup even if Mamie did tip them off. But I had to stay on
account of Sheila. That was funny. It was because of Sheila that I was going on staying with Mamie. I had to stay, and all the time the only way I wanted it was to be married really to Sheila. If Mamie weren't there I could get a divorce from Lois any time. Or I thought I could.

I was thinking all tha
t and answering Mamie in an off
hand way. Finally she got up.

"Well, let's get home," she said.

She got up and walked along by the rail.

When she did that I knew all of a flash what I had to do. I sat there not daring to think about it, and then Mamie went in through the little door.

She called, "Come on, big boy!"

I
followed her, thinking what a fool I'd been to miss my chance.

Then she said, "It was Swell up there."

But I had my mind made up. I knew there'd be another chance.

3 lay there that night listening to Mamie snoring. I stood it as long as I could and I began to get the jeebies. I got up and went over to her bed. She was sleeping with her mouth open. I thought how I could choke her, but then I knew if I did they'd be sure to find out afterward.

I just stood there, looking a long time. She didn't wake up.

I was. afraid I'd do something anyhow. So I went into the front room and shut the door so I wouldn't see her. I got a pencil and paper and started writing to Sheila. I, tried to write, how I loved her, but I couldn't. I couldn't do it because I could hear Mamie breathing. All I could write was:

I would like to see you again and I would like to see you as soon as you get this letter. I have something important to tell you. You must come. I want to see you very much.

That's all I wrote. Mamie had some stamps in the drawer. I slipped on a bathrobe and went down the corner and mailed the letter, special delivery.

When I got back Mamie was just sleeping the same as ever. But I felt better because I'd written Sheila, even though I couldn’t get to sleep.

LIKE WHISKY AND MOUNTAINS AND MUSIC

T
he next day was my day off. I got up early. Mamie was still asleep. I went up to the hide-out and began to figure it all out. I got a wrench and began working on the bolt that held the upright of the railing. The nut was so tight I could hardly move it.

Smitty came out and said, "What are you doing?"

"That was a little bit loose and I was just tightening it up," I said.

"Gosh, I thought I put it in so tight I froze it."

I pretended I was tightening it up. He said:

"Gosh, if that railing gave way and a guy went over he'd make a nice splash down there on the pier. There'd be nothing but a grease spot and ten ounces of spit."

He kept talking like that and I wished he would stop. But he kept on until he heard a gondola coming up, so he ducked back in to throw the switch.

Then I went downtown and bought a railroad ticket to Frisco. I wanted to get Sheila out of the way so's she wouldn't hear about anything. I got the ticket and went back up on the chute.

After that I got to thinking about what would happen. Smitty had seen me with the wrench—but if anyone found out that would show that the railing was really shaky. It would help me out. I sat there thinking.

It came lunch time, but I couldn't eat. I lay back on the cot, smoking and worrying about how I'd work it. I began trying to figure out ways
I could get Mamie up there with
out her being suspicious.

I woke up and I knew I'd fallen asleep and Smitty was shaking me.

"Hey, Dempsey." Smitty was shouting. "Hit the deck. There's someone here to see you."

I was still half asleep a
nd dopey from the sun, and some
how I was thinking it was Mamie. Then I opened my eyes and I saw it was Sheila. She was standing there, just smiling at me. I lay there, my eyes open, just seeing her face above me smiling. From where I lay her face was set against the sky, all back of her blue and her head there and her wearing a blue beret and her hair black and her eyes smiling.

When Smitty ducked inside, she sat beside me and just stroked my head and smiled like I was a baby.

"How did you get up here?" I said.

"I found the way. I got your letter and you said you wanted to see me right away. So I came."

"I wanted to see you."

"I know. What's the matter? Tell me."

"Nothing's the matter. Nothing."

She stroked my head.

"You mustn't worry about me," she said. "I don't matter. You must just be happy."

"Look, I ought to marry you, Sheila."

"Hush."

"Look, here's a ticket to Frisco."

"What for?"

"Look, you go up there a few days. Then I'll come up and we'll get married."

She wouldn't take the ticket.

"No," she said, very softly. "We'll never be married. It would never do. Things would happen. To us. We won't be married."

"But, gosh, Sheila, what about you?"

"I tell you it doesn't matter. I won't be a worry to you. I won't have you suffer. It was a great adventure—a very very great adventure. Now, you look tired—you look so, tired. Just sleep and let me watch you."

She began stroking my head again.

"I can't sleep."

"Yes, you can."

She knelt beside the cot and kissed my eyes and made soft noises as if I was a baby. She kept kissing my eyes so I had to keep them shut. I could smell her hair, close to me and smelling sweet.

"Just tell me once you love me," she said.

I held her head close and I said:

"I do love you
.
I love you like I can hardly breathe when I see you, and like hot whisky coming down my throat and into my lungs and heart."

"Like whisky?" she said. I could hear her laughing like she was pleased.

"Oh, I'm no good at that stuff, Sheila, really."

"Tell me some more."

"I love you like you was music—that music on the radio that night, and like you played on the piano."

"Like music? And what else?"

"Well, I love you like those shadows on the road that night by the mission."

"My, you do very well as a lover."

"I don't, I'm not good."

"Yes, you are. You're my best lover."

"No, I'm no good at it."

"You are. Tell me some more things you love me like."

"You're kidding."

"I'm not. I want to hear. I love to hear."

"You want some more?"

"Everything you can think of."

"Well, I love you like mountains that are blue and gold, and like the smell of the sea up here, and like the bugle playing taps late at night."

"And like whisky, too."

"Sure, like whisky, too. The first drink. And like getting up in the morning after it's been raining but now the sun is out, and like being in the forest where the big trees are, and like a Rolls Royce engine. I love you like all those things."

"Why, you're wonderful."

"I'm no good at it."

"You are. You're a poet, really. I shan't ever forget. Never, ever."

"I wish I was better at it."

"Oh, you're my very best lover. Do say some more, please. I'll never ask you again."

I held her head tight against my neck as she knelt beside the cot, and I tried to tell her how I loved her.

"I love you mornings and nights," I said. "I think all night about you, I can't sleep for thinking and figuring and worrying."

"There, there,"
she
said, like I was
^:
a baby.

She had been kissing my eyes again, then she kissed my mouth and then my forehead, and I felt I was falling asleep and I never wanted it to change.

I woke and saw the guard rail was missing.

I looked over the edge and saw people running and heard them screaming and saw them, tiny, below, looking up, and heard a police whistle and saw something lying there.

And I went running down the steps, jumping down and swinging round the wooden uprights to make the corners, jumping down whole flights and running into someone trying to stop me from getting there, and fighting to get down to the bottom of the steps to get to Sheila and fighting till they beat me cold.

That's how afterwards they said I tried to escape after the crime and battled police for five minutes until subdued. I wasn't trying to escape. All I wanted to do was to get to Sheila and tell her I was sorry I hadn't told her more how much I loved her when she asked me; but I never got to Sheila at all. I never ever saw her at all after that.

TIGER MAN

T
hose cops sweated me but I wouldn't say aye, yes, or no. I am plenty tough, and
I
didn't care what they did
.
I
tell you, all I could think of was Sheila and I hoped they would kill me. I didn’t care.

One time I got sore and went into action. I saw a paper afterward and it said how the tiger man had attacked four police and tried to escape. That was what they were calling me—the tiger man. I didn't try to escape. I just cleaned up
the room till some more coppers came in and they got me down. But they didn't get a word out of me. I am plenty tough and I didn't care. I hoped to die anyhow, thinking about Sheila.

They got poor Smitty, too, and sweated him. I guess they gave him plenty. I saw them bringing him out of the office and he looked dead to the world. I said, "Hi, Smitty!" but the coppers hustled him away right off. He just gave me a look and waved me the highball with his hand and smiled, but boy, it was a sick smile.

Then they took me in and said he'd told them I had planned it all and he'd seen me loosening up the guard rail.

I guess Smitty told them the truth—that he'd seen me and I'd said I was tightening it. I didn't think they'd got much out of Smitty, so I
wouldn't say anything. The cop
pers got plenty sore at me before they were through.

They kept going day and night, and then up on the chute they found the arsenic bottle. I'd put it up on a crossbeam there. They asked me if I knew it, and I said, "Sure. I found it up on the chute one day."