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  The fact was, I guess, that he just couldn’t stand for me to be any good. If I was any good, then I couldn’t be the low-down monster that had killed my own mother in getting born. And I had to be that. He had to have someone to blame.

  I don’t fault him much for it anymore, because I’ve seen a lot of people pretty much like he was. People looking for easy answers to big problems. People that blame the Jews or the colored folks for all the bad things that happen to ’em. People that can’t realize that a heck of a lot of things are bound to go wrong in a world as big as this one. And if there is any answer to why it’s that way—and there ain’t always—why, it’s probably not just one answer by itself, but thousands of answers.

  But that’s the way my daddy was—like those people. They buy some book by a fella that don’t know a god-dang thing more than they do (or he wouldn’t be having to write books). And that’s supposed to set ’em straight about everything. Or they buy themselves a bottle of pills. Or they say the whole trouble is with other folks, and the only thing to do is to get rid of ’em. Or they claim we got to war with another country. Or…or God knows what all.

  Anyway, that’s how my daddy was. That’s the way I grew up. It’s no wonder, I reckon, that me and the girls always got along so well. I reckon I really worked at getting along with ’em; sort of made a trade out of it without really knowing I was doing it. Because a fella has to have someone that likes him. He just naturally has to. And girls are just naturally inclined to like a man.

  I guess when you come right down to it, I was making the same mistake that those people I was talking about make. Because there ain’t no bigger problem than love, nothing is truly hard to come by, and I was looking for an easy answer to it.

  7

  Well, sir, danged if I hadn’t got back to Pottsville on just about the darkest night of the year. It was so dark that I could have had a firefly sitting on my nose and I wouldn’t have been able to see it.

  Of course, the dark didn’t really bother me. The way I knew every nook and cranny of Pottsville, I could get to wherever I wanted to go if I was walking in my sleep. So the dark was really an advantage to me, rather than otherwise. If anyone was up and around, and of course there wouldn’t be at that time of night, they wouldn’t see where I was going and wonder why I was going there.

  I walked right down the dark middle of Main Street. I turned south at the end of it, and headed toward the river. There was just a speck of light down that way, sort of a little blob bulging up out of the darkness. I figured it came from the whorehouse, or rather from the little pier behind it. Those two pimps would be sitting out there, I knew, taking the night air and drinking themselves stiff.

  They’d be feeling their oats for sure by the time I got there. All sassy and nasty, and primed for meanness toward a fella that’d always been nice to them.

  I struck a match, took a quick look at my watch, I began to walk faster. The steamer, Ruby Clark, was about due and I had to be on hand when it rounded the bend.

  There’d been a pretty hard rain the week before; low river country, there’s always a lot of rain. The wet was all dried up by now, because we get a lot of hot sunshine too. But the road had gotten rutted here and there, and hurrying like I was I brought my foot down where I shouldn’t have.

  I stumbled, almost taking a header before I could right myself. I paused, sort of getting my breath back, and then I whirled around. Straining my eyes and ears, scared stiff for a minute. Because I’d heard something. The same kind of clod-kicking sound I’d made, only not so loud.

  I held my breath, telling myself that there couldn’t be anyone following me. Knowing that even if there was someone back there, I was still protected by the darkness.

  I stood stock still for two, three minutes. Then, I heard the sound again and I recognized it for what it was, and I almost laughed out loud with relief.

  It was just some of those god-danged big night-beetles we have down here. They go swooping around, looking for each other, and then they come together in mid-air and go plunking down on the ground.

  They can make a heck of a racket on a stilly night. If you’re maybe just a little uneasy like I was, they can give you a bad start.

  It was two or three minutes later when I got to the whorehouse. I tippy-toed along the walk which ran down the side of the place, and went around to the rear.

  The two pimps were there, right where I thought they’d be. They were sitting down with their backs to the mooring posts, a dimmed lantern and a jug of whiskey between them. They looked at me owl-eyed as I came in out of the darkness, and then the one named Curly, a kind of dude-ish fella with kinky scalp-tight hair, shook a finger at me.

  “Now, Nick, you know you’re not supposed to come over here but once a week. Just once a week, and only long enough to pick up your graft and get.”

  “That’s right,” said the one named Moose. “Fact is, we’re bein’ mighty generous to let you come here at all. We got a reputation to protect here, and it sure doesn’t help none to have a fella like you dropping around.”

  “Well, now,” I said, “that’s not a very nice thing to say.”

  “Oh, well, there’s nothing personal in it,” Curly said. “It’s just one of those unpleasant facts of life. You’re a crook, and it doesn’t look good to have crooks around.”

  I asked him how come he thought I was a crook, and he said what else could I call myself. “You take graft, don’t you? You’re getting a dollar out of every five that comes in here?”

  “But I have to,” I said. “I mean, it’s kind of a civic duty. If I didn’t keep you people stripped down a little, you’d get too powerful. First thing I know, you’d be running the county instead of me.”

  Moose sneered and wobbled to his feet. “You two-bit clown,” he said, “will you just get the hell out of here? Will you, or am I gonna have to make you?”

  “Well, now,” I said. “Well, now, I don’t know about that. I figure that’s a pretty mean way to talk to a fella that’s always been nice to you.”

  “Are you gonna get or not?” He took a step toward me.

  “You’d better, Nick,” Curly nodded, pushing himself up. “You kind of make us sick to our stomachs, you know? It may not be your fault, but the air turns bad every time you show up.”

  Around the bend, I could see the lights of the Ruby Clark, and I could hear the whip of the paddles as it fought for the turn. It was that time, it would be that time any second now, and I unholstered my gun and took aim.

  “Wha—!” Moose stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth gaping open.

  Curly said, “Oh, now, Nick!” forcing a smile to his face. But it was the sickest smile I’ll ever see.

  That’s one thing people always know, I guess. They know when they’re going to die. And Moose and Curly knew that they were going to.

  “Good night, ye merry gentlemen,” I said. “Hail and farewell.”

  The Ruby Clark whistled.

  By the time the echo died, Moose and Curly were in the river, each with a bullet spang between his eyes.

  I waited on the little pier for a minute until the Ruby had gone by. I always say there’s nothing prettier than a steamboat at night. Then I went around on the catwalk, and headed for home.

  The courthouse was dark, naturally, when I got there. I took off my boots and crept up the stairs. And I got in bed without waking anyone.

  I fell asleep right away. A couple of hours later I waked up, with Myra shaking me.

  “Nick! Nick! Will you please get up, for pity’s sake!”

  “Huh! What?” I said. “What’s going on, Myra?”

  But I heard it then, the pounding on the downstairs door. A fella would’ve had to be deaf not to hear it.

  “Well, I’ll be dogged,” I said. “Now, who in tarnation can that be?”

  “Well, go and see, darn it! Get down there before they wake poor Lennie up!”

  I studied about it for a moment, staying right where I was while Myr
a went on nagging at me. Then I said I wasn’t sure whether I should go downstairs or not, because why for would any honest person be pounding on doors at this time of night?

  “It might be robbers, Myra,” I pointed out. “Wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that’s who it was. I hear they do their robbin’ late at night when decent folks is in bed.”

  “You fool! You stupid, spineless, cowardly slob! Are you the sheriff of this county or not?” Myra yelled.

  “Well,” I said, “I guess you could say that.”

  “And isn’t it the sheriff’s job to take care of criminals? Isn’t it? Answer me, you—you—!”

  “Well, I guess you could say that, too,” I said. “I ain’t thought much about it, but it sounds reasonable.”

  “You—you get down there!” Myra spluttered. “Doggone you, you get right down there this minute, or I’ll—I’ll—”

  “But I ain’t got no clothes on,” I said. “Nothin’ but my long-handled drawers. Wouldn’t hardly seem right goin’ to the door without no clothes on.”

  Myra’s voice dropped so low that I could hardly hear it, but her eyes flashed fire. “Nick,” she said, “this is the last time I’m going to tell you. You go to the door right this minute, or you’ll wish you had! You’ll really wish you had!”

  The pounding was getting a lot louder by now, and someone was shouting my name, someone that sounded an awful lot like Ken Lacey. So, what with Myra carrying on like she was, I figured maybe I’d better go to the door.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed, and pulled on my boots. I studied ’em a minute, wetting my finger with spit and rubbing down a little scuffed place. I yawned and stretched, and scratched under my armpits.

  Myra let out a groan. She snatched up my britches and flung ’em at me, so that the legs wrapped around my neck like a scarf.

  “You ain’t mad about somethin’, are you honey?” I said, getting the britches untangled and starting to draw ’em on. “I sure hope I ain’t annoyed you no way.”

  She didn’t say anything. Just started to swell up like she was about to explode.

  “I got a trade-last for you,” I said. “A fella was saying to me the other day, he said, ‘Nick, you got the prettiest mother in town.’ So I asked him who he meant, naturally, because my mama’s been dead for years. And he said, ‘Why, that lady you call Myra. You mean to tell me she ain’t your mother?’ That’s just what he said, honey. So now you got to tell me something nice that someone said about me.”

  She still didn’t say anything. She just leaped at me, sort of meowing like a cat, her hands clawed to scratch my eyes out.

  She didn’t do it, because I’d been kind of expecting something like that. All the time I was talking to her, I was easing back toward the door. So instead of landing on me, she came up against the wall, clawing the heck out of it a-fore she could come to her senses.

  Meantime, I went on downstairs and opened the door.

  Ken Lacey busted in. He was wild-eyed, heaving for breath. He grabbed me by the shoulders and started shaking me.

  “Have you done it yet?” he said. “God-dang it, have you already gone an’ done it?”

  “Wh-what?” I tried to shake free of him. “Have I gone an’ done what?”

  “You know what, god-dang it! What I told you to do! Now, you answer me, you consarned idjit, or I’ll beat it out of you!”

  Well, sir, it looked to me like he was pretty excited about something. Might get himself in such a tizzy that he’d keel over with the frantics. So I just pushed him into my office and made him set down at my desk, and I struck a lamp and made him take a big drink of whiskey. And then, when he seemed to be calmed down a little, I asked him just what it was all about.

  “What am I supposed to have done, Ken? The way you’re actin’, you’d think I’d killed someone.”

  “Then you didn’t,” he said, his eyes hard on my face. “You didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Kill anyone?” I said. “Why, what a riddicerlous question! Why for would I kill anyone?”

  “And you didn’t? You didn’t kill them two pimps that was sassing you?”

  “Ken,” I said. “How many times have I got to tell you? Why for would I kill anyone?”

  He heaved a big sigh, and relaxed for the first time. Then, after another long drink, he slammed down the jug and began to cuss his deputy, Buck.

  “God-dang, just wait until I get hold of him! Just you wait! I’ll kick his mangy ass s’hard he’ll have to take off his boots to comb his hair!”

  “Why, what’d he do?” I said. “What’s old Buck gone an’ done?”

  “He frazzled me, that’s what! Got me so god-danged excited an’ worried that I was plumb out of my mind,” Ken said, cussing Buck up one side and down the other. “Well, it’s my own god-danged fault, I reckon. Had the proof right before me that he was a low-down maniac, but broad-minded like I am, I went and closed my eyes to it.”

  “How come?” I said. “What you mean you had the proof, Ken?”

  “I mean I caught him reading a book, that’s what! Yes, sir, I caught him red-handed. Oh, he claimed he was only lookin’ at the pitchers, but I knew he was lyin’.”

  “Well, I’ll be dogged!” I said. “I will be double-dogged! But what’s Buck got to do with you being down here?”

  So Ken told me how it had happened.

  It seemed like after he left me, Buck went back to the office and began to fret out loud. Wonderin’ whether I’d really be crazy enough to kill those pimps, which would leave Ken in a peck of trouble. The way Buck saw it—in his out-loud worryin’—Ken had told me I should kill ’em, and if I went ahead and did it he’d be just as guilty as I was.

  He kept on fretting about it, Buck did, saying I just might kill the pimps because I’d always taken Ken’s advice in the past, no matter how nutty it was. And then when he saw how upset Ken was getting, he said that the law probably wouldn’t be too hard on him. Proba’ly wouldn’t be hard on him, a-tall, like they would me, but maybe let him off with thirty, forty years.

  The upshot of it was that Ken finally tore out of his office, and caught the Red Ball freight to Pottsville. He hadn’t had too nice a trip because the caboose, where he was sittin’, had had an awful flat wheel. He said he was probably a lot sorer in the behind than I was from getting kicked, and all he wanted to do now was go to bed.

  “I just had more’n one poor body can stand in a day,” he yawned. “I reckon you can put me up all right, can’t you?”

  I said that I was right shamed, but no, I couldn’t. We just didn’t have no place where an extra fella could be bedded down.

  “God-dang it!” he scowled. “All right, I’ll go to the hotel, then!”

  I allowed that that might be kind of hard to do, seeing that Pottsville didn’t have a hotel. “If it was daytime, you could bed at the Widder Shoup’s place; that’s what the travellin’ salesmen do. But she sure wouldn’t let you in at this time of night.”

  “Well, where the god-danged hell am I gonna sleep, then?” he said, “I sure as heck ain’t sittin’ up all night!”

  “Well, let’s see now,” I said. “Danged if I can only think of but one place, Ken. A place that could bed you down. But I’m afraid you wouldn’t get much sleep there.”

  “You just lead me to it! I’ll do the sleepin’!”

  “Not at the whorehouse you wouldn’t,” I said. “Y’see, the girls ain’t had much business lately, and they’d all be mighty raunchy. Prob’ly be makin’ demands on you all night long.”

  “Uh-hah!” Ken said. “Well, now! I reckon a fella can put up with anything if he has to. Nice young gals, are they!”

  “No, they ain’t,” I said. “Most of ’em are fairly young, maybe seventeen, eighteen. But they got this one old gal that’s every bit of twenty-one. And she just won’t leave a fella alone! She purely won’t, Ken, and it wouldn’t be fair not to warn you.”

  A streak of spit was trickling down his chin. He brushed it away and stoo
d up, a kind of glassy look in his eyes.

  “I better be goin’,” he said. “I better be goin’ right this minute.”

  “I’ll put you on the right road,” I said. “But there’s something you got to know first. About them two pimps…”

  “Don’t you worry none. I’ll take care of ’em!”

  “You won’t have to,” I said, “because they won’t be there. They’ll be off somewheres drunk by now, and they won’t wake up until noon.”

  “What the hell, then?” Ken took a fidgety step toward the door. “If the girls think they ain’t there—”

  “But they don’t think that. The pimps have got ’em kidded that they’re watching the place day and night, which naturally makes it hard for the girls to relax and have fun like they want to. So—”

  “Uh-huh? Yeah, yeah,” Ken said. “Go on, god-dang it!”

  “So here’s what you do as soon as you go in. You tell the girls that you’ve taken care of the pimps real good, and that they won’t be nosing around a-tall. You tell ’em that, and everything will be just fine an’ dandy.”

  He said he’d tell ’em what I said to. (And as it turned out, he told them exactly that.) Then, he went out the door and across the yard, moving so fast that I could hardly keep up with him.

  We crossed through the edge of town, and I lined him up on the river road. He went on by himself, then, without so much as a nod. And then I reckon he remembered his manners, because he turned around and came back.

  “Nick,” he said, “I’m obliged to you. Maybe I ain’t been too nice to you in the past, but I ain’t forgettin’ what you’ve done here tonight!”

  “Aw, pshaw,” I said. “Comes to that, Ken, I ain’t forgetting all the things you’ve done, neither.”

  “Well, anyways, I’m obliged to you,” he said.

  “Why, it was a positive pleasure doin’ it,” I said. “A positive pleasure, and that’s a fact.”

  8

  Ken showed up at breakfast time the next morning, looking mighty peaked and pale and wrung-out. But all shook-up as he was, he managed to toss a lot of flattery at Myra and to say a few kind words to Lennie, so she treated him pretty nice. Not real nice, because she knew he’d spent the night in the whore-house—which was the only place he could have spent it—but as nice as a lady could treat a gentleman under the circumstances. She kept urging him to have something to eat, and Ken kept turning it down with thanks and saying that he hardly ever et anything in the morning but just a little coffee, which was all he wanted now.