Some Came Running

by James Jones

  Dave stole another look at Doris without saying anything. Doris she sat looking after them, her whole face still covered with that aloof but angelic sweetness she habitually wore and which apparently nothing could shock off, her wide deep blue eyes still widely innocent, the same look in short that she always wore—except for a certain narrowing canary-swallowing-catlikeness about the eyes when she smiled.

  After a moment, she turned back to her book, her cheek still childishly propped on one hand, and bent her head to the print in silence. Only the unusual whiteness of her face showed there was any rage pumping through her or any faster beating of her heart or that she felt anything at all. Slowly, a faint flush spread over her face and then faded away again.

  A couple of minutes later, she got up and in her demure stately marching kind of walk, went over to the countertop and mixed herself another drink and came back and sat down with it.

  Dave did not know what to do. He was terribly upset. He was embarrassed for her, and hated having been present as a witness. Unable to do anything, he decided the best thing was just to ignore the whole thing completely. He bent his own head back to his own book, and pretended to read. Anyway, all he could see was the top of her small cherrywood-colored head anyway.

  So they sat.

  He did not know exactly how long. All he knew was that he read through one more page without grasping it, either. Apparently, Doris drank her new drink rather quickly. And then she got up again to go and make herself another. But this time, instead of going straight on around the table to her own seat on her way back, she suddenly turned off, toward his, put her glass down on the table, and then sat herself down on his thigh.

  Dave was too startled to do anything for a moment. She was quite a lot heavier than he ever would have thought, his mind noted. And the feel of her, all firm-soft female flesh, was deliciously sexual. Though he hardly had time to really savor it. If she had kept her mouth shut, it might have worked.

  But before he could do anything except straighten up, she leaned back against him, her eyes coming level just a little bit higher than his own—wide open, deep blue, childishly innocent—and said in a husky half-whimpering whisper,

  “Nobody in the world has ever loved me. Not ever really loved me. I’ve always felt you could.”

  Probably, it was pitifully true. He was not sure whether she was playing Rita Hayworth or Lana Turner, but the explicit movie tone of it was unmistakable. And pitifully true or not, she herself certainly did not believe it true. And that was why it didn’t work. Such totally un-self-aware vanity was infuriating. If she had only kept her mouth shut . . . Dave continued to stare back at her, because to have looked away would in some obscure way have been admitting guilt.

  “I’ve always thought you were so pudgy and cute,” she said in the same Rita Hayworth-Lana Turner whisper, and rolled a lock of Dave’s swiftly thinning hair around her finger, and Dave had an impulse to laugh. “You’re sensitive,” she smiled, “you have understanding.”

  “Get up,” he said. “Get up before ’Bama comes back downstairs.”

  And that was the other part of why it didn’t work. She was ’Bama’s girl, ’Bama’s problem. Whatever troubles they had was their business, and he was damned if he was going to be turned into a pawn in a fight between them. If she wanted to get ahead of ’Bama, she was not going to use him to do it.

  Doris did not say anything for a moment. Then she got up off his leg and picked up her glass and stepped back around the table. And there, before she sat down, she bent upon him such a potent look that he could actually hear in his ears the words those no-longer-childish but murderous snapping eyes shouted at him in silence.

  “You Fat, Slobby, Sniveling, Gutless Son of a Bitch.”

  Dave’s jaw tightened, and for the first time since he had first met her, he opened up his own eyes and withdrew the curtain of politeness from them and through them shouted back his own opinion of her personality.

  “You Dumb, Degenerated, Whoring Pig of a Rich Girl Gash.”

  For several moments, they stayed just that way, and finally it was Doris who dropped her eyes and Dave immediately felt embarrassed again for her. But he could not help but marvel at her aplomb.

  As virginal and innocently dewy-eyed as she had ever been before, she sat down in her chair and looked down at her book, took several healthy sips of her drink, and then looked back up at him with childlike china eyes and it was actually as if none of it had ever happened, and Dave felt his brain yaw around wildly and wondered if he were going off his rocker. He knew it had happened.

  “How long do you think they’ll stay up there?” she said in a hurt little girl voice.

  Dave coughed. “Well, when we bring gals home with us, they usually stay almost all night,” he said embarrassedly, and found that now it was he who wanted to look away.

  Doris swung her face away from him and looked around the room. “Well, I suppose there’s no point in my hanging around here waiting for him then, is there?” she said.

  Once again, fury shuddered all through Dave. A thought had suddenly come in his mind, as he sat watching her as she looked around the room, and he knew he had not thought it himself. It could only have come from her.

  “No, I guess not,” he said, struggling to keep his voice from quivering. “Unless, of course, you want to go on up there and crawl in with them. That’s what you were thinking, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t give a damn what she did, or thought. That wasn’t it. It was that damned uncrackable aura of respectability, and the way she so blandly denied everything.

  Doris did not answer him, but stared back at him steadily, the hurt expression still on her face from before, as if he had not even spoken.

  “Well, I guess I might as well go, then,” she said. She got up from the table and collected her purse and coat and went gravely to the door. From the door she smiled back at him and in a hollow voice said “Good night, Dave” and went on out, leaving him with his book and his inability to read it.

  The next day she was back, right after school again.

  ’Bama was there this time (after having driven his horror back to Terre Haute) and she came right on in and mixed herself a drink and sat down with them quietly. She did not say a word about the night before. But there was a hot catlike smoky-eyed hate-filled passion about her for ’Bama that, to Dave’s knowledge at least, she had never exhibited before. Dave tried not to see it, feeling somehow deeply embarrassed for her, but it was impossible not to see it. Doris couldn’t keep her hands off ’Bama. And she practically ignored Dave. ’Bama himself sat back and watched her amusedly, like a biologist performing an experiment with some form of lower animal. But she herself could not see this, apparently; or if she did, did not care, or else thought she could still defeat him. And that, too—if you knew ’Bama—made you embarrassed for her. Dave could not take it and finally got up and got out and went down to Smitty’s. Watching two other people’s love life was pretty nearly as full of ridiculousness as watching two other people in bed together and left you hoping you would not look as ridiculous to them. ’Bama only winked at him as he left, and said he would meet him later on at the Eagles Lodge game.

  He had already talked to ’Bama about what had happened the night before, and in so doing had clarified for himself several things about ’Bama. It had been that morning, after ’Bama got back from Terre Haute, before Dave went to work.

  “Well, you went ahead and romped her, didn’t you, I hope,” the tall man said.

  “Hell, no!” Dave cried. “I wasn’t going to romp your girl behind your back!”

  “Well, goddam,” ’Bama said. “If you didn’t, that makes you about the only guy around this camp who ain’t.”

  “You can’t be sure of that.”

  “No,” ’Bama said; “no, you can’t. I guess. But if I was goin to bet on it I shore wouldn’t bet the other way.”

  Dave had to laugh. “No,” he said. “Neither would I.”

 
“The next time you get yoreself a chance like that,” ’Bama admonished, “you go ahead and take it. Cause it shore won’t make me any difference.”

  “I’ll probably never get another chance,” Dave had said, ”but if I did, I still don’t think I’d take it. I just don’t want to get involved with her. I don’t like her, somehow. I guess—I guess it’s just because she’s just—well, dumb.”

  “Dumb?” ’Bama said. “Dumb like a fox. A fox don’t read books, nor talk well, nor think rationally. But don’t never tie into him on his own ground where his instincts come into it. You’ll take a whippin. And love and sex is women’s home ground, see? Us men think we know a lot about sex and love, but there ain’t a man in the world who knows as much as the dumbest fourteen-year-old virgin has known ever since she was born.”

  “I guess that’s right,” Dave said, though he didn’t really believe it. “What did you do it for, anyway?”

  “Do what?”

  “Bring that pig home when you knew she was here.”

  “What the hell, it’s my house ain’t it? I got a right to bring anybody into it I want to. I don’t owe Doris anything.”

  “Then you done it on purpose.”

  “No. I just done it. I didn’t know if she would be here. But I shore didn’t give a damn if she was. I’ve just got tard of her tryin to run my damn life. I just figured it was about time I taught her a lesson. Just because I’m rompin her don’t mean I’m goin to quit rompin other women.”

  “Do you think she’ll ever come back?” Dave had said.

  “Well, the truth is, I don’t give a damn,” ’Bama said. “But I expect she will come back, she’s that type.” And she had come back, that same afternoon. “Look,” he said. “Let me tell you something.

  “When I was a kid in high school,” ’Bama said, “I played ball. First base. I played all through high school and after that on one of the plant teams there in town. Well, there was a guy played with me—a catcher—name of Jim Thurston. We called him Jimmer. He played all through high school with me, and afterwards on the same plant team. Now, I was never very good—never big-league material. But Jimmer was. I mean he was good. He was a marvel of a catcher. Had an arm like a pistol shot to second base. And glue fingers. And he was fast as hell. And he could hit. And run. I mean he was really good. He belonged in the big leagues.

  “Well, even in high school, the scouts had their eye on him, and after he got out of school, he got several offers. But Old Jimmer turned them all down, and you know why? Because he had a girl in town there, in Birmingham. And Jimmer didn’t want to leave his girl. He was rompin this gal regular, see, the first real regular romp he’d ever had, and he didn’t want to give it up; and she didn’t want him to give it up, either. So Jimmer decided he would stay in Birmingham with his girl. They got married, he went to work in the plant, and played ball on the plant team. He’s still there.”

  ’Bama stretched himself. “All for a little regular slash.” His usually cool eyes were snapping with suppressed outrage.

  “Well, that taught me a lesson,” he said, repressing his emotion and grinning, “a lesson I promised myself I would never ever forget. I made up my mind that no goddamned woman was ever goin to tell me what to do and ruin my damn life just because she was rompin me. If you just could of seen that guy play ball!” he cried.

  It was the kind of a story that always angered Dave, too.

  “Well, maybe he’s happier as he is,” he said after a moment.

  “Happy!” ’Bama cried. “What the hell has ‘happy’ got to do with it? He had a talent. Would you be willin to give up yore writin, just so you could be happy!”

  Dave could not help but grin. “Well, sometimes I sure as hell think I would.”

  “But you wouldn’t!” ’Bama cried. “And you know it. And anyway what the hell is happy, anyway? Can you describe it to me? No, and neither can nobody else. But everybody’s always bitchin and moanin about bein happy. It makes me sick to my stomach!” He took a fresh breath:

  “But a person who has a talent has a responsibility to it, by God. I don’t care what kinda talent it is. Talent is the only single damned thing that separates human beings from dogs or cats. And when a person has a talent, it don’t just belong to him. It belongs to everybody. And that gives him responsibilities to it.”

  “You really believe that?” Dave said.

  “Yore damned right I do.”

  “Well, I guess I believe it, too,” Dave grinned. “But of all the people in the world, you’re the least one I ever expected to hear talking about the responsibilities of talent!”

  “How so?” ’Bama said, bringing his voice back down out of its excitement.

  “Well, you don’t live like you believed in responsibilities.”

  “That’s because I don’t have a talent,” ’Bama said. “Maybe that’s why I’m able to appreciate talent. Because I don’t have any myself.”

  “Baloney!” Dave derided. “You could do any damned thing you set your mind on. You’ve certainly got a talent for gambling, that’s for sure.”

  “You think I’d be livin in this little old one-hoss town if I really had a talent for real gambling?” ’Bama said.

  “No,” he said seriously, “I ain’t got any kind of talent, really. Not enough, anyway, to make it really something—uh—”

  “Creative?” Dave said, smothering a grin.

  “Yas. Creative,” ’Bama said, “and don’t laugh, you son of a bitch.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I’ve thought a lot about it. I’m pretty good at a lot of things, but not really good at any of them.”

  “You could do any damned thing you wanted to do,” Dave said. “Anybody can. If they just want to do it bad enough.”

  “Well, then maybe I just don’t want to do any one thing bad enough,” ’Bama said. “But I don’t believe that. I believe a talent’s born into a person. And I just wasn’t born with any.”

  “You know, I’m going to have to take you over to the Frenches with me sometime,” Dave said. “You’d like them, ’Bama.”

  “Yeh,” the tall man said. “Sometime we’ll have to go over there. But I just wanted to tell you the story of what happened to Jimmer Thurston so as to explain to you why I done what I done to Doris and why I don’t intend to ever let no woman ever run me. I made up my mind a long time ago that if I ever got married it would be to a woman that I could run instead of her running me.”

  “And what kind of woman would that be?” Dave grinned.

  “Well, they got to be two things,” ’Bama said. “First, they got to be dumb. I mean really dumb. And second, they got to be very very respectable; and it’s better if they’re real religious, too. Then there’s another third thing: They got to be used to takin orders from the menfolks, so that they believe that’s the way things ought to be.”

  “Passive,” Dave grinned. “True female passivity. And just where the hell do you find a woman like that today?”

  “Well, there’s not very many of them, I’ll grant you that. There used to be a lot more of them.”

  “If you mean your Southern belles,” Dave grinned, “I’m afraid I’m forced to disagree with you. I’ve read too many histories to ever believe that.”

  “You’ve only read about the rich ones,” ’Bama said, “not the pore ones. If you want an example, Stonewall Jackson’s wife was a good example of the kind I mean. She—”

  “Let’s don’t get off on the Civil War,” Dave grinned. “I’ve got to get to work sometime today.”

  “Well, that’s the kind,” ’Bama said. “And I guess you got to add one more qualification: They can’t have been rich before you met them. That’s the kind I married, when I finally found one.”

  “What about her?” Dave said, emboldened a little. They had never again spoken of her, since that first day he had met the Southerner. “What about your wife?”

  “What about her?” ’Bama said. “She’s the type of woman I been describ
in to you, that’s all.”

  “But don’t she ever get mad at you? Don’t she ever eat you out?”

  “Why should she?” ’Bama said. “I take good care of her; she don’t never want for nothin. And she’s got her religion, and her farm she makes money on. And she’s got her kids. When a woman has her kids, she don’t really give a damn about the old man anymore; because she’s got from him what she really wanted from him—long as he supports her. Ask any man whose wife has ever had some.” He grinned. “Her and me trust each other, and we’re real good friends—though we don’t neither one agree a damn with what the other believes or does.”

  “It’s unbelievable,” Dave said. “To hear you tell it, anyway, she sounds just about like the perfect wife.”

  “She is,” ’Bama grinned. “Hell, I picked her myself. I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll have to be goin down there sometime soon. Whyn’t you come down with me.

  “Look!” he said. “Armistice Day ain’t far off, and the hunting season opens. You come down to the farm with me and meet her and judge for yoreself, and we’ll stay a day or two and do some huntin. There’s some mighty good quail country down there.

  “Then,” he went on, “then we’ll go up north where I know where there’s some good pheasant country and hunt pheasant a couple of days. What do you say? You can afford to take a few days off, can’t you?”

  “Sure,” Dave said, “hell, yes! I haven’t done any hunting since back before the war.”

  “Well, we can go out here in town to the Skeet and Trap Club, of which I am a member,” ’Bama grinned, “and practice up a little before we go. You ever shoot skeet?”

  “Just a few times.”

  “We can have ourselves a nice regular little huntin vacation,” ’Bama said, suddenly enthusiastic.

  “And anyway,” he grinned, “I would like to get yore opinion—yore professional, writer’s opinion—of my wife.”

  “You got yourself a deal,” Dave said. “But there’s just one other thing, buddy,” he said, grinning. “By God, don’t you ever jump on me about bringing Ginnie Moorehead down here as long as that pig Doris of yours keeps on hanging around here!”