by James Jones
He started out with the two poolrooms, then moved on to the bars. Then he started in on the clubs, any of which ’Bama might be at, playing cards. Slowly, he drove his crusty little Plymouth up and down the streets from one place to the next. Finally, he found him, sitting in a stud game beneath his immaculate semi-western hat, at the American Legion Hall.
“Well, look who’s here,” the tall man drawled and grinned. “It’s old pard. Hello, old pard.”
“Come on, ’Bama, and play,” one of the players growled. “Or you gonna sit and talk all night?”
“Just saying hello to my old pard,” ’Bama said. “Besides, I’m studyin. I’ll see,” he said and threw two blue chips out on the table. “Come on and sit in,” he said to Dave.
Dave did not want to, but he did. All of the players at the table except himself and ’Bama were old vets, men of the First War of fast-fading memory. Not old yet, but old enough to see their war, and their heroisms, all displaced. Dave wondered suddenly if Caesar’s veterans might not have looked a lot like this in Augustus’s time. He remembered every single one of them at the table from his childhood. They had all been hanging out here twenty five years ago. When the Old Man’s younger brother, Roland, now dead, who was a vet used to bring him down here. But they all looked smaller now and more narrow-shouldered. Both death and success had made inroads on their numbers, but the rest remained. Stubbornly, the ones who were left clung onto their sanctuary.
Feeling as though he wanted to laugh or maybe cry, Dave concentrated on the poker. He had never been a really good poker player; he got too excited, and he overplayed. He knew what his trouble was, but he could not control it; the mere thought of playing always excited him.
He played in their game about an hour, and in that time the strange alchemic thing that had happened with ’Bama and him before, happened again. They began to win. They did not play together, or even try to. But gradually, the percentage of the hands that either one or the other of them won began to rise, and kept on rising. Finally, after winning a big pot on a king high hole card, Dave pushed back his chair.
“I guess I’ve got enough. I didn’t come down here to play poker anyway. I was just lookin for ’Bama.”
Across the table the tall Alabaman grinned. “Anything special?” he said. “Or just in general?”
“Oh, I thought we might go out and hit some joints, or something. Nothing special.”
“Okay,” ’Bama said, “I’m yore man. Hey, Elvie,” he called to the fat, crippled old vet known as the “Custodian.” “Fry us up six hamburgers to go. Come on play one more hand, our hamburgs be ready to go by then.”
After the hand, they collected their hamburgers in a paper sack. ’Bama stuck his nose down in the sack and inhaled deeply. “Ahhh! Give us six cans of Greasy, too, Elvie,” he decided. “Sanwiches like them needs beer.”
With the beer and hamburgers, they left. The other players had already gone on with the game. “I’ll see all you gentlemen,” ’Bama said from the swinging doors. He sneered it of course, by sheer force of habit, but it seemed to Dave there was a curious respectfulness in his voice that he had never noticed anywhere else.
“Well, where you want to go?” the gambler said when they were outside.
“Hell, I don’t know,” Dave said. “Any place, I guess. I don’t even care.”
’Bama chuckled. “I kind of had a hunch you just wanted more to talk. Well, let’s take our sanwiches and beer on up to yore place at the Douglas. You got your car? You go ahead and I’ll follow you.”
When they were in his room, ’Bama broke out the hamburgers and opened two of the beers. “There you are, dig in.” He himself drained off half his own beer in one long swig and then helped himself to the whiskey bottle on Dave’s dresser and poured some into his can of beer. Then he sprawled himself out in the armchair as he had done the other times. “Well, how much you win?” he said.
“About twenty bucks,” Dave said. He helped himself to a sandwich and a beer. He had suddenly become acutely self-conscious. It had started when ’Bama had asked him where he wanted to go. He hadn’t really wanted to go anywhere, he had wanted to ask him what he was going to be doing Christmas but he couldn’t because he did not want ’Bama to know he had nothing to do.
“I won about forty myself,” ’Bama drawled. “Most of it after you come in. It’s funny, you know it? Almost the minute you come into that game, I could feel somethin change. I knew I was goin to start winnin. Did you feel that?”
“No,” Dave said. “I didn’t.”
“Well, by God, I sure as hell did.” ’Bama sighed around a mouthful of hamburger and laid his head back, the immaculate hat tipped over his eyes. “You know,” he said, “gamblin’s really a profession, a craft. A fellow gets into it he has to learn his trade, his craft. But beyond that hes got to have luck.
“Matter of fact,” he said, “gamblin’s an awful lot like farming. I’ve done both. What does a farmer do? He gets everything ready, gets his seed out, all that stuff. And in the end, it’s all luck, whether he makes his crop or not. It’s a gamble. He never knows if he’s goin to make money or not, see?”
“Well, writing a book is just the same thing at that,” Dave said. “It’s a gamble.”
’Bama looked over at him. “Well sure it is, ain’t it?” he said. “You never know whether yore goin to have a best seller or not.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s a gamble, too,” ’Bama said, looking a little surprised. “It’s all a gamble, and in the end it all hangs on luck. Which is something nobody understands the workings of.” He seemed to be suddenly full of talking. “Nobody knows anything about luck, except that it exists, and comes and goes, and that nobody can control it. Well, now I actually believe that luck’s controlled by the mind. I don’t mean by havin faith and all that religion crap. What I mean is, I think there’s some actual physical part of the brain that controls luck. Some gland or nerve cell or something like that. The trouble is, we ourselves don’t know how to control that gland or whatever it is. At least, not consciously. But I believe that when a man is hot and winning, he’s actually physically controllin them cards, with some part of his brain some way that he don’t know he’s doin. I mean actually physically, you see?”
He looked straight at Dave and went on. “People think gamblers are superstitious because they’re always wearin the same hat or always keepin the same coin in their pocket and things like that.” He pulled out a rabbit’s foot and held it up and grinned. “But the truth is, gamblers know that they got this gland in their brain—although they may not have any idea what it is—and they know that certain circumstances make it work. All they’re doin when they wear the same hat is trying to duplicate whatever circumstances it was that made it work for them the last time,” he said, staring straight at Dave.
“I guess,” Dave said.
“You take you and me. Why is it when we both get together, we both begin to win more? I don’t mean that we win them all, but the overall percentage of winning hands we have definitely goes up. That’s a fact. And so there’s got to be some explanation for it. Some factor we don’t know about that would explain it reasonably if we just knew what it was.
“I shore wish you and me could form that gamblin pardnership we talked about,” he said, “while we’re still lucky for each other. We ought to take advantage of it while it lasts.”
’Bama reached for his beer can and discovered it was empty. He got up to open two more beers. “But that’s what fascinates a person about gamblin so much, you know? It’s like death: We don’t really understand it any more than we understand what luck is.” He laughed. “Well,” he said, “what was it you was wantin to see me about anyway?”
“Oh,” Dave said, suddenly self-conscious again, “nothing special. I just thought I’d look you up, you know? Say,” he said, “what are you going to be doin Christmas?”
“Christmas?” ’Bama said looking startled. “Well, I don’t know.
Nothing. Why? What’s today?” he said, “Wednesday the twentieth?” He counted the days up on his fingers. “Christmas is Monday. I ain’t doin nothing Monday that I know of. Why?”
“I thought we might celebrate,” Dave said. “Go off somewhere and get on a good drunk together.”
“Okay,” ’Bama said. “But why Monday?” He was just handing Dave his beer. Then he stopped and began to grin. “But ain’t you going to be spending Christmas over to yore little schoolteacher’s in Israel?”
“Who? Me? Hell, no.”
The grin widened. “You mean she didn’t ask you.”
“Look,” Dave said. “What in hell are you talking about? Why the hell should she ask me for Christmas?”
“Aw now, come on, buddy,” ’Bama said. “Everybody in town knows you and that schoolteacher of Wally’s are hot for each other.”
“Now look!” Dave said. “All I did was come around and ask you to go someplace on Christmas. If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. Just say so. But spare me your wit and homegrown psychology.”
For a moment, ’Bama stared at him cold-eyed, his face set like stone, as if debating whether he should take offense or not. Then he apparently decided not to. He moved, and rearranged his face.
“Okay,” he grinned, “let’s go to Florida.”
Dave, who had only had time to think that everything was going wrong, and had been for some time, could not believe he had heard right.
“To Florida!”
“Sure,” ’Bama grinned, “why not? I ain’t been down there since I was at that Tankers’ Vacation Home they sent me to in ’45 when I come back from overseas. We can run down there for a couple weeks or so and have us both a real celebration. The winter season’ll just be startin and Hialeah and the dog tracks’ll be runnin. We might even make expenses.”
“But what about your family? Don’t you have to spend Christmas with them?”
“Hell, no,” the tall slim Southerner said. “I’ve done bought them all the damned presents they want. So it don’t matter whether I’m there or not. My mom and my brother and all will be there. They always go down to the farm for Christmas. Hell, I never do.”
“Well—when will we go?” Dave said.
“Go right now,” ’Bama said. “I’ll go back to the boardinghouse and pick up an extra suit and hat and you can be packin up and I’ll come back and pick you up here. Whatever we don’t take we can buy when we get there.”
“What about money?” Dave said.
’Bama sneered. He didn’t say a word.
“Okay,” Dave said, “let’s go. Just one other thing first. Why don’t we take a couple of women with us?”
“Women? What for?”
“Well, for the kicks, goddam it! and for the sex! what do you think. I thought we might take a couple the brassiere factory girls? How about taking that Ginnie Moorehead, for me, and Mildred Pierce for you?”
’Bama looked at him with unconcealed astonishment. “Whoa!” he said. “Now wait a minute. Just because you romped Old Ginnie last night don’t mean you can push her off on me for a trip to Florida.”
“How did you know I romped her?”
“Jesus Christ!” ’Bama sneered, “whoever didn’t see you take her out of Smitty’s last night knows all about it now because Ginnie herself’s done told everybody in town.
“‘My friend Dave Hirsh,’” he said, mimicking Ginnie’s dully poleaxed voice, “‘you know my friend Dave Hirsh, yes we was out last night’ then a giggle ‘you know, Dave Hirsh the writer, the brother of Frank Hirsh owns the jewelry store.’
“Look, I know yore new around here,” he said, “and don’t know the protocol, but you got to learn it. When you go out with Old Ginnie, you don’t take her out of Smitty’s in front of everybody, you make the date and meet her outside later.”
“Why?” Dave said. “You don’t do that with the rest of them?”
“No, but you do with Ginnie. That way, when she tells people she was out with you and how good or bad you were, you can always deny it and nobody’ll know, not for sure.
“And as for takin them to Florida, that’s out,” ’Bama said. “Why, hell, man! every secretary and nurse and ‘bachelor girl’ east of the Mississippi is going to be on vacation in Miami now lookin for some man. We should take them pigs with us?”
“All right,” Dave said, “okay. You’ve convinced me. I just—you know—I just felt sorry for her. And thought the trip might be a nice thing for her.”
“Shore!” ’Bama cried. “I feel sorry for a hawg strung up in a slaughterhouse, too, but I don’t take him to Florida with me.”
Dave said nothing. He still felt, though, that ’Bama was being a little too cold-blooded about another human being.
Even for ’Bama. After all, Ginnie Moorehead might not be much, but she was still a human being; and as a human being was entitled to a certain basic dignity and respect.
“Don’t you be listenin to nothin that that Ginnie tells you,” ’Bama cautioned. “I don’t think you know enough about women yet, Hollywood or no. Now I’ll go pick up my extra suit and hat and you pack whatever you want and I’ll come right back and pick you up.”
Then he was gone and Dave started to look around the room to see what he would pack, at two o’clock in the morning. It did not seem five minutes that he was back and then they were on the road, heading east out of town, the two of them sitting silent in the smoothly purring 1937 Packard, and ’Bama driving and wearing those dark-green glasses he always wore when he drove which had partial correction for long distance. “My eyes just ain’t quite good enough for fast driving. When yore drivin eighty-five and ninety, you got to be able to drive a quarter of a mile ahead at least.” His topcoat collar was up around his ears, and the still-immaculate pearl hat low over his eyes, and his gloved hands rested lightly on the wheel. In the back, only the one suit on a hanger with a toothbrush sticking up out of its breast pocket and the big square tan-and-brown Stetson hatbox on the seat attested to the fact that he was going someplace. Beside him sat Dave, looking out at the darkened houses in the dead part of the night.
It was just about then, as he sat there looking out at the town, that Dave had his strong sudden feeling of non-residency. Of being a man who had no roots here, and who had no regrets at leaving, and who more than halfway expected not ever to come back. His car he was leaving parked and locked on the street. More than half of his clothes, and all his books, and most of the rest of his worldy possessions still reposed in that miserable little hotel room—which, at ’Bama’s suggestion, he had paid the night man a month’s rent in advance for. And outside of that, outside of those things, nothing. His interest in the taxi service he did not count. If he never saw it again, it did not matter. What did any of it matter? Emotion seized him. He was more than three-fourths convinced that he would never come back here, and if he didn’t, who would give a damn? He did not say anything about any of this to ’Bama.
Out of all of it, he had made sure of one thing: His typewriter was packed. His new portable typewriter. It sat on the floor of the backseat, and inside the lid clipped at the top all the manuscript he had done to date. It wasn’t much, and it certainly wasn’t good, but it was his, by God. He was still a writer. ’Bama Dillert might be the best damn gambler in the world, but he was not a writer. Gwen French might be the greatest English teacher on earth, but she was not a writer. He was.
The heavy purring Packard passed off of the end of the brick pavement and onto the concrete highway, and then the last of the houses were left behind. Eyes a little moist, Dave wondered if he would ever see this place again and doubted if he would, and said he did not care.
When they rode up onto the bridge heading for Terre Haute, Israel was all dark below them on the right, except for the few streetlights. Dave looked down at it with fiery eyes. If he ever did come back to this goddamned place, it would only be because he had not given up on that goddamned Gwen French woman yet. He did not take to defeat as
easily as a lot of people—especially, Gwen French—thought, he thought, and stared down through the blackness, trying to see the house, as if he hoped that by the very power of his outrage and hurt he could penetrate with his eyes right through to where she lay, and cause her to turn uneasily in her sleep.
At the moment, he had never loved anybody so much in his life.
Then they were across the bridge and following the river road, where Route 40 ran north to Terre Haute, and everything suddenly dropped away from Dave almost as if Parkman and Israel and Gwen never had existed and he had never stopped off there on his way home to Hollywood from Chicago. All that was behind, spun out of existence by the spinning tires of ’Bama’s Packard while at the same time they spun into existence new places and existences up ahead.
They would, ’Bama had said, get on US 41 at Terre Haute and take it south as far as Nashville, but after that he was not so sure; he had heard 41 wasn’t in such good a shape now after the war. At Terre Haute, they made the turn south onto 41, and ’Bama began that smooth acceleration that was like a gentle hand on your chest pushing you back into the seat. By the time dawn had seeped itself down through the leaden winter sky some three hours later, they had passed Madisonville, Kentucky, and were well on their way to Hopkinsville and Nashville, an average mileage of a little over sixty miles an hour. And all of it driven with no apparent strain or pushing.
To Dave, for whom driving had always been a sort of nerve-racking chore, the kind of driving ’Bama did was almost unbelievable. After daylight, as if in some way the advancing light itself released him from some vow of silence, ’Bama began to talk more. In answer to a question of Dave’s as to whether he had ever driven this road before, he admitted that he had and began to expound on the art of highway-driving—as opposed to race-driving. During the trip, he came back to it from time to time, and in the rest of the thirty hours it took them to get to Central Florida, Dave learned more about driving than he had learned in the rest of his whole life all put together.