Roughneck

by Jim Thompson

  Well, I liked these gentlemen very much, and I was personally sympathetic to their plan. But it was inadvisable on a great many counts. I explained this to my callers and they left—quite friendly, but intimating that the matter would be carried over my head. I immediately sent a long letter to Washington.

  I wrote that we would undoubtedly be politically pressured to do the book, but that we should and must withstand it. Labor was sensitive about its mistakes. It would consider unfriendly a book that was merely accurate and complete. Then, there were the various inter-union quarrels—long-standing jurisdictional disputes, for example. We could hardly ignore them in the proposed history, but the skimpiest mention was certain to offend some organization. Before the book was finished, we would have pleased no one and angered everyone.

  I did not believe (I wrote) that labor was yet sure enough of itself to accept an honest, factual history. And even if this were not the case, there was an excellent reason for steering clear of the job. Federal expenditures were intended to benefit all the public. The one contemplated would not. If we did a history of labor we would lay ourselves open to demands from other segments of the population. We could be asked for a history of the state chamber of commerce, or some other such group, and we would have no legitimate grounds for refusing.

  I got no reply to my letter; no acknowledgment of it. Washington simply wrote me, a couple of weeks later, to proceed with the labor history.

  I did so.

  All the problems that I had foreseen, and then some, arose. I could never get the different labor leaders together without the danger of a knock-down, drag-out brawl. Any unfavorable mention of a union was invariably "a goddamned lie" and "that guy sittin' over there" (the leader of an opposition union) should be compelled to admit it. As for me, I was charged with everything from stupidity to personal prejudice to taking pay from the National Association of Manufacturers.

  I was fortunate in having the confidence of Pat Murphy and Jim Hughes, respectively the state commissioner and assistant commissioner of labor. Their help in oiling the troubled waters was invaluable. Oddly enough, however, I received the most assistance from a man who had profanely declined to appear at publication committee meetings and who had threatened to kick me out of his office if I ever walked into it.

  I called on him. He didn't give me the promised booting, but I did get an ear-blistering cursing out. He had "heard all about" the way his union had been slandered; an acquaintance of his on the committee had tipped him off. Well, if I let one word of it get into print, all hell was going to pop in Congress. And if I thought he couldn't make it pop, I was a bigger damned fool than I looked.

  I asked him why he thought I would want to injure his union. He grumbled that he didn't know, but he knew damned well that I had. Laying the manuscript before him, I asked him to look at a portion dealing with another union.

  The section was not flattering to the organization involved, and as he read he began to nod approvingly. I had those bastards dead to rights, he said. Someone had at last told the truth about them, and about time, too. I pointed out some other sections to him—likewise unflattering and dealing with other unions. He read through them beaming.

  "Could have made it a little stronger, though," he said. "I could tell you things about those sons-of-bitches that would make your hair curl."

  "I imagine we'll have to tone it down a lot," I said. "They've been kicking about it."

  "Naturally, they're kickin'," he declared. "The truth always hurts."

  He nodded to me, piously. Then, after a moment, a slow flush spread over his face, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.

  "Of course," he said, "we shouldn't be too hard on people. Now, I got just about the biggest union in the state, and there's bound to've been a few times when—we—uh—got out of line a little, but—"

  I looked at him, torn between the desire to laugh and blow my top. Suddenly, I stood up and reached for the manuscript.

  "Let's have it," I said. "I thought I could talk sense to a man as big as you are, but you're even worse than the others."

  "Now, wait a minute. All I said was—"

  "At least they don't insist on a brag-book. That's what you want. You're good at dishing it out, and when it comes to taking a little you start crying. Everyone's picking on you and you're going to raise hell in Congress, and—"

  "Sit down," he said firmly. "Maybe I had you all wrong and maybe you've got me a little wrong. Let's start all over again."

  I sat down, and we went through the manuscript together. He was by no means pleased with some of the references to his union, but he felt impelled to prove his fairness—to show me and the other labor organizations how a 'big' man operated. And with his example to point to, I was able to swing the others into line.

  I don't mean to say that we, the writers' project, got everything into the manuscript that should have been in it. But this was as much due to the lack of publishing funds as it was to the attitude of the unionists. We published as comprehensive a book as we could for the money we had.

  I should mention here that the government furnished no funds for publishing, 'per se;' only for the actual preparation of the manuscript. So, at the beginning, I had set up an apparatus among the unions for soliciting and handling money. It did not function; there were too many conflicts among its members. Too much distrust. In the end, or rather, long before the end, I became the treasurer-solicitor.

  By late summer of 1939, we had the funds to publish a modest volume and the manuscript was finished. Washington approved it, I sent it to the printer. A few days later, with the type already set, I was called into state headquarters of the various work projects. They flatly ordered me to kill the book.

  Flabbergasted, I wanted to know why. If there was any part of the book which they had justifiable objection to I would gladly cut it out. So much had been cut already that a little more wouldn't be missed. I was told that they "had not had time" to read the manuscript (they had had a copy for days), and the matter was not pertinent. The book simply should not be published 'period.'

  I said it would be published 'period.'

  I returned to my office...and found a long-distance call from Washington awaiting me. They had just talked with the state officials. They agreed with the latter that the book should be killed.

  I was so furious that I could hardly talk. "You shoved this thing down my throat," I said. "I didn't want to touch it and I told you why—and you ordered me to go ahead anyway. Well, now we've spent a fortune in government funds on research and writing. Now we've collected publishing funds from the unions and contracted with a printer and got the book set in type. And now, without any explanation, you tell me to forget the whole thing. I'm not going to do it. I couldn't do it if I wanted to, and I don't want to."

  I slammed up the phone. Calling my secretary, I wrote my fourth and very final resignation.

  I knew what lay behind the ultimatum handed me—a very shabby kind of politics. A national election was impending. The administration had decided to take a sharp turn to the right, to do nothing that might even remotely offend the conservatives. It was not necessary to do anything for labor or to show any particular regard for it. Labor could be kicked in the teeth, and it would still tag along with the administration. It had no place else to go. The conservatives, on the other hand, must be appeased. No chances could be taken with their vote.

  Washington responded to my "insubordination" by sending an official out to see me. We met at his hotel room. A rather prim, old-maidish guy, he was much more conciliatory than I had expected. Washington did not want me to resign, he said. They were sure, and so was he, that some kind of compromise could be worked out to the satisfaction of all parties.

  I said that nothing would make me happier, and that, meanwhile, I would delay my resignation.

  To abridge events considerably, we got quite companionable as the afternoon waned. He brought out a bottle, and with the first few drinks his prim manner disa
ppeared. I was a swell guy, he declared—a pleasant relief from the stuffed shirts who usually surrounded him. We had been talking business for hours, so now how about a little fun? What could we do tonight by way of relaxation?

  Well, in a city without night clubs or a legitimate theater, there was not a very wide choice of entertainments. Anyway, he was not interested in more of "the same old things." We kicked the subject around, continuing to drink, and finally we went out to an amusement park.

  We went on a number of rides, he getting gayer and gayer. We arrived eventually at the penny arcade, and here the bag-punching device caught his eye.

  "Challenge you," he said. "Go ahead and hit it, and then I will. Bet I can sock it harder than you can."

  I dropped a coin in the slot, pulled the bag down on its chain and hit it. He glanced at the dial which registered the impact, and waved me to stand aside.

  He wound up, more in the manner of a ballplayer than a boxer. Grunting for me to "just watch this one," he swung. The bag crashed against the dial. It came hurtling back. And since he had not removed himself from its path, it smashed squarely into his face.

  That ended the evening's entertainment. In an icy, accusing silence, I drove him back to his hotel. He was going to have a couple of very unlovely black eyes. I, who had seen him at a gross disadvantage, was to receive a figurative shiner. At least, I had a strong hunch that he would slam me as soon as he got back to Washington.

  All my life, it seemed, things had been turning out this way. I would work myself into exhaustion, maintain the most correct of attitudes. Then, flukish Fate would take a hand and something preposterous and wholly unrelated would edge into the picture. And all my work and rightness would be as naught.

  My hunch was correct.

  The gentleman returned to Washington.

  Washington "regretfully" decided to accept my resignation.

  I refused to quit. My project funds were cut off. I remained at work unpaid, as did my executive staff, until the labor history was through the printers.

  With a little string pulling, my staffers were relocated in other jobs. I then did some very earnest pulling on my own behalf.

  A few weeks later, through the instrumentality of the University of North Carolina Press, I received a year's research grant-in-aid from the Rockefeller Foundation.

  20

  A few nights ago, during one of the rare periods of quiet around our domicile, my wife and I fell to reminiscing about the "good old days" when we and our children were young.

  "I don't know how we stood it," said Alberta, with a mixture of fondness and horror. "Of all the nutty, headstrong kids anyone ever had! I guess they must have got it from you, Jimmie."

  "Oh, undoubtedly," I said. "It's unthinkable that 'you' might—"

  "Well, naturally," Alberta shrugged. "Naturally, no woman in her right mind would have married you in the first place. Or if she did, she'd soon go crazy. And speaking of marriage, Mr. Thompson..."

  "Yes?"

  "You still owe me the twenty you borrowed for us to get married on."

  "To get back to the subject," I said, "those children were really a handful, weren't they? Of course, they still go their own merry way, but compared to how they used to be—when Patricia was about six and Sharon three and Mike two..."

  ...those kids—our kids—Pat, Mike and Sharon. They took one long look at us as they entered the world, decided that we were no more than well-meaning imbeciles, and thenceforth paid us no heed whatsoever. As far as authority was concerned, one would have thought that they were the adults and we the children. They would have nothing to do with high chairs, sleeping cribs, toidy pots or the other impedimenta of infancy.

  Each insisted on his own double bed. Each insisted on using the regular toilet, nor were they at all chagrined when, as frequently happened, they fell into it. High-chairs, milk, baby food—such was not for them. Before they could walk, they were sitting at the table; they demanded to so sit, backing up the demand with hunger strikes. Elevated by stacks of books, they wielded their long razor-sharp carving knives—each had his own pet blade. And while Alberta and I looked on in helpless horror, a whole ham or a nine-pound roast would disappear as though by magic.

  They smoked my cigarettes. They appropriated my beer. They took full charge of our household, three firmly autonomous powers, and everything therein or around that household.

  Pat, our eldest, and seemingly the least loony of the lot, gave us relatively little trouble. 'Relatively,' mind you. Pat seemed to have been born with a college professor's vocabulary, also a penchant for dramatics, and she used the first attribute to satisfy the second. Left alone with a telephone for five minutes, Pat became "Mrs. Thompson" or "Mrs. Thompson's social secretary." She would call store after store, ordering stuff that she wanted as theatrical props. And she was so damnably glib about it that she frequently obtained credit where Alberta and I ourselves had been turned down flat.

  Mike, our youngest, was what I have always regarded as the most horrid of humans, the direct bane of humanity—a practical joker. Visitors to our house invariably found diapers stuffed into their hats, purses and the like. Diapers which looked much more unwholesome than they actually were. Like Pat, Mike had an artistic bent. Mixing dinner leftovers with mustard and mayonnaise, he achieved messes so hideously realistic as to deceive even his mother and me.

  Sharon, our middle child, and the second oldest...Sharon. I could write a book about her—a dozen books. But being limited spacewise, perhaps I had better concentrate on her principal and most troublesome peculiarity.

  Sharon collected, and ran a school for, wild animals.

  Pushing a perambulator which we had bought during Patricia's infancy, and which she and our other kids had flatly declined to ride in, Sharon patrolled the alleys and byways, taking into custody the biggest, the ugliest cats and mongrels she could find. She loaded them into the buggy, dogs and cats together. And there was such a peculiar charm about her, such a fey-ish quality, that they never fought nor protested.

  "You be dood," she would say, hoisting a bulldog in one arm and a tomcat in the other. "Be fwiends." Then, into the buggy they would go, and while they did not become friends, their behavior was impeccable.

  When she had a full cargo, she wheeled them home and into the bathroom. She washed them there, bandaging any wounds they might have, then escorted them into the kitchen. Stuffed with several dollars' worth of groceries, they were next taken into the living room—her "school." And here, having seated them in a row, Sharon lectured them on personal hygiene, the importance of being "fwiends" and similar assorted subjects.

  I don't know what the qualifications were for "graduation," but some classes met them very quickly, were dismissed within an hour or so, while others were held far into the night. In any event, no post-graduate work was required; and each day's student body was composed of a new group of animals.

  Well, to get on with my story: with three kids like ours, a home of our own began to seem imperative. So, a few months before I left the writers' project, we moved into one. I didn't buy it outright, of course. As with the furniture—eight rooms of brand-new stuff—I made a substantial down payment and mortgaged my earnings into eternity for the balance. But with all my dread of debt, I felt that the move had been a wise one.

  The house was a rambling, roomy tapestry-brick cottage, with an enormous back yard, a garage and servants' quarters. The price was incredibly cheap. It was so low, in fact, that I had been a little alarmed, feeling that there must be something seriously amiss. But I knew quite a bit about building, and even a very superficial investigation of the premises told me that this was first-rate construction. So, as I say, we bought it and moved in.

  It was a happy time, that first afternoon in our own home. The kids were pleased with it, impressed with the new furniture. Pat promised to lay off the charge accounts. Mike agreed to forgo the diaper-and-mustard trick. Sharon...

  "That child," Alberta sighed wearily.
"One minute you see her, and the next one she's gone."

  "Well," I said, "at least we know where she's gone. She took the perambulator with her."

  "Well, go out and find her, for goodness sake! We've got a nice place now, and I want to keep it that way. Tell her—ask her—please not to...Now what are you grinning about, Mike?"

  "Mike's grin widened. "Sha'n," he said. "Sha'n unner house."

  '"What?"'

  "Uh-huh. Unner house wif tats an' dogs."

  It was true, we discovered by stamping on the floor. We went out into the yard, and Sharon presently emerged through the foundation air vent, covered with cobwebs and dirt and followed by her coterie of animals.

  "Buds unner house," she explained placidly. "Otsa bad buds. Twied to dit wid of 'em."

  Alberta said that of course there were bugs under the house, there were bugs under any house. "What I want you to get rid of," she said, "is those animals. And for heaven's sake get yourself cleaned up."

  Sharon dismissed her class without protest; apparently their practical experience in "bud hunting" had earned them a diploma. We were about to reenter the house when Pat yiped suddenly, slapped a four-inch centipede from her neck, and took a hearty swing at Mike.

  "Doggone little brat! I'll teach you to put spiders on me!"

  "Did not." Mike kicked her on the shin, his face puckered indignantly. "Don't wike buds."

  "Tol' you," said Sharon. "Buds unner house. Inna house. All over everywhere."

  "Well, they probably are now," said Alberta grimly. "You dragged them all out with you. Now, get cleaned up and stay out of trouble for a few minutes!"

  We dragged Mike and Pat into the house and locked them in separate rooms. With Sharon occupied in the bathroom. Alberta and I began preparing dinner.