Rock Island Line

by David Rhodes

  That afternoon he got a job selling newspapers. A man in a drugstore said he’d give him all the papers he wanted for seven cents each and that he could sell them for ten. He bought twelve papers, withholding seven cents of his money for fear thirteen would be unlucky. He took them into the park and quickly began to learn how to say, “Hey, mister, want a paper?” both loud enough to be heard very clearly and at the same time so impersonally that it took no courage at all. It seemed as though he sold five right away, but couldn’t get rid of any more. Then two policemen told him to get out of the park, and made him follow them to the edge of it and look at a sign and listen to it read to him in the tone of a threat, where he learned that no soliciting meant you couldn’t sell newspapers there. The policeman who hadn’t said anything up until that time bought a paper.

  The wire wastepaper baskets along the street made July nervous. He was trying to sell something that had already been thrown away hundreds of times. He went down to City Hall and sold three outside the landing of the L.

  Someone grabbed him by the collar and turned him around, nearly lifting him off his feet. “Listen, kid, get the hell out a my area or I’ll kick the livin’ shit clean out a ya.” It was the fat, swollen-faced man he’d seen behind the stand a flight up. The man turned him around again and shoved him toward the exit. July dropped the remaining three papers and went back to pick them up, but the man dashed at him, surprisingly quick for his size, and swung a leg up to kick him like a dog. “Beat it,” he yelled. July dodged him and fled up the stairs and outside. But on the way by the stand, abandoned as soon as the fat man had heard from a friend coming up that there was someone down on the docks peddling papers, he took a handful and sped across Broad Street and past the movie theaters. Two blocks later, after he’d stopped running, he counted them. Only five. He sold them all outside a delicatessen and produce market, bought a bag of caramel corn and some french fries and went exploring for the rest of the afternoon and evening, until he could safely return to his room. That night, just before he went to bed, when he’d come out to take a leak beside the tracks, he saw a wolf that looked like a man walk down into the tunnel across on the other side, on two legs.

  The following day he learned that he could get newspapers off the company truck—whole bundles at a time—for four cents a copy, and that he wouldn’t have to pay for them until the end of the week, and if he got up early enough in the morning to catch several stands of seven-to-seven-thirty bus riders, or stood in front of the big offices at eight, he could easily sell seventy-five or a hundred. If he had a good day, he could sell the rest of his bundles by noon and be finished for the day. On a slow day—when it was raining and the pages were soggy and there was nothing but gossip in the headlines—he could work for all he was worth and not sell half a bundle. After a while, when he could see one of those days unfolding before him, he would throw it in, let the company share the loss (they never charged him for papers he couldn’t sell, but didn’t pay him for trying to sell them either) and go to a movie on 14th Street, where in the dark of the theater he would plan how he could manage to sell beneath City Hall without getting caught by the oaf who’d paid $5000 for the territory.

  He saw many of the other paper boys getting their own corners from older boys who’d finally get out of the business, buying them, which in the paper company’s mind, and most certainly in their own, gave them exclusive right to a whole block, where it was possible to try for every paper man’s dream: steady customers who know you and always buy from you—enough to keep you afloat even in lean times and still give you a crack at the good days when you might sell four hundred papers. These corners cost usually between $100 and $200. July didn’t buy one for two reasons: first, he liked the feeling of being able to go anywhere to sell, the thrill of hitting it rich in a new neighborhood; and secondly, if he was going to have his own place, it was somehow going to be beneath City Hall.

  He worked each day and, except for very unfortunate ones, could depend on making $6.00. Two of the six, no matter what, he put into a glass jar, for a savings fund. It cost him between $1.50 and $3.00 to eat, depending on what he felt like, and the rest he spent on furnishings for his room, and clothes as he needed them. The days grew colder and he was forced to save for a pair of warm socks, a secondhand coat with a fur collar, two more blankets, and gloves.

  In some of the places he frequented to eat, the help got to know him, and one old woman who lived in Germantown told him about how he could use the restrooms and showers in the basement of the civic center. Most of the panhandlers and street-walkers knew him by sight because of his wide area of circulation. Every once in a while he’d get a free meal at the mission and one of the men would secretly give him a snort from a bottle of wine. He began keeping cats, but it was difficult and a little heart-rending because every so often one would disappear without a trace, leaving only gloomy fantasies of what might have happened and frightening him into imagining someone had found his room and was coming in while he was away selling papers to steal cats and look for money and guns. But luckily July came upon a cat one night climbing roofs, a big black-and-orange tom with long hair and half of its left ear missing, that never disappeared after he’d taken it home.

  What a difference it made to have that cat! He couldn’t believe how lonely he must have been before. He looked back on himself before the cat as a different person altogether, morose and a little stupid. Sometimes he would go to a movie after dinner, just because he wanted to get back to Butch so badly—in order to draw it out and make himself feel more important, so that he would come back full of excuses as to why Butch, sitting disdainfully in his cardboard-and-blanket house, had to wait so long to be fed. They slept together, and if it wasn’t snowing Butch would occasionally accompany him on his paper rounds. Naturally, no one at first believed a cat would follow anyone around—not purposely; but, nevertheless, There goes July Montgomery, the paper kid, who lives nobody knows where with his cat was what even Boz Green clear over by Fairmount Park thought when he’d look out from his crackerbox studio and see them, and sometimes (though he was nearly broke himself) would leave his painting, go out on the street and call him over and get a paper.

  “What’s up?” asked Boz.

  “That depends what you’re after to be up, Mr. Boz,” said July.

  “And how’s Butch, your indignant cat?”

  “Oh, Butch is a little put out today. It seems I’ve tricked him once again into going out and getting his feet wet.”

  Butch was sitting down on a dry step, frowning.

  “You haven’t been around lately, July.”

  “No . . . Paper, mister? . . . No, I’ve been in Old Town a lot as of late, mixing it up you might say with high society.”

  “Is that so? I hadn’t heard.”

  “Yes, it’s true. We get along just fine. They want me and Butch to join, but Butch feels he isn’t quite up to it yet.”

  “Why’s that, Butch?” asked Boz, bending his voice down to the cat, who looked away from him down the street.

  “You’ll have to ignore Butch’s manners,” said July. “He’s not quite himself until afternoon.”

  “You want to come in for a cup of chocolate, July?” asked the painter cautiously, for this was the first time he’d invited him up.

  “No, don’t think we can make it. We’re running short today, and Butch is afraid of stairs. But thanks for the offer. Sunday paper, mister?” And they were off again.

  “That Boz,” said July to his cat, once they were a good block away, “you be careful of him. He’d like nothing better than to fuck you in the ass.”

  That night, after getting a couple of triangles of hot pizza and eating it walking, they went back to City Hall. July looked at the fat man’s newspaper stand, locked tighter than a drum, and thought to himself, Something’s going to be done. Soon.

  The first-shift night man was in the change booth on the second floor. He was the only one of them that July liked, except for Char
lie, who wasn’t often there. No one at all was on the landing and the Crosstown Express swooped through without stopping. So empty that the echoes were more pronounced.

  “Hi, Wade,” said July, lifting Butch up against his coat where he could see into the window. Benton (Bent) Wade was a midget, July knew, because he’d seen him one time outside the change booth. When you could only see his head and shoulders you couldn’t really tell for sure. The small hands were not conclusive evidence.

  “Hello, my friend,” said Wade, stacking new rolls of quarters in the quarter cylinder. “Hello there, Butch. As ornery as ever, I see. Wait, I believe I have something for you.” He reached into his lunch bag, took out a waxpaper-wrapped sandwich and opened it up to pinch off a small corner of cheese. Then he held it out through the cup-shaped dispensing hole. July held Butch over closer and he took the cheese off Bent Wade’s finger.

  “Thanks,” said July.

  “Have you sold any of those films?” asked Wade.

  “I sold three.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Two of Prison Women, one of Peter’s Revenge.”

  “What about Fanny Flappers?”

  “No good. I think it’s an old one. Everybody’s seen it.”

  “Well, bring the rest back and I’ll try to get some more. That joker told me that was a new one. How about Sweet Regret? What’s the matter there?”

  “Too much. Nobody wants to pay over five dollars, not if they can’t see part of ’em first.”

  “OK, well, bring the rest back. Did you try down by the museum? I heard there’s guys down there—”

  “I went there. Wrong day, I guess. Nothing but old ladies and winos.”

  “Well, bring the rest back some time this week and I’ll give you the money on ’em. I know someone who wants a Sweet Regret and I’m all out.”

  “Sure, Wade. Can I get two dollar bills?” He put down the same amount in dimes on the wooden dish; Bent scooped it up in one motion and gave him two bills. “Thanks. See you later.”

  “Take it easy, kid.”

  They left.

  The Woodland II car came up out of the north tunnel and July stepped back to signal it on, then recognized Bobby Barns, who knew him, and waved. Bobby tipped his hat comically. The car rattled by without stopping. July appreciated these Sunday nights more than any time of the week. The desertedness of the vast concrete cavities, the absence of voices and the sweet feeling of complete isolation that it gave him made it seem like being in an ancient cathedral, a place where a person might go to be alone.

  Inside their cement cubicle July reclosed the cardboard door, struck a match to light the lamp and carried it back into the main living room, where he had his pallet, a chair across from Butch’s box and a small, low table just big enough for the cat to sit on and watch him turn over cards for seven-row solitaire. The faces from inside the pictures stared at him from the wall where they were displayed, glued to a piece of black construction paper. The gun was taped beneath the table, handle pointing toward his chair, but it’d been almost three months since he’d taken it out to look at. He took off his yellow paper carrier, and brought the films Benton wanted out of another and stacked them on a miscellaneous box next to the door, where he’d remember to carry them up some time later that evening. No, he decided, he’d take them back some other day. He didn’t feel like going out.

  Then he got the cat food, mixed it with a little water from the gallon jar and set it down. Butch scowled at it and went into his box as though a statement of his independence was more important than independence itself. You dumb cat, thought July, took up the book he’d begun last night and resumed reading. Another trolley went by outside without stopping. Then he remembered that he’d forgotten to put away the $2.00. The jar was buried underneath his bed; he dug away the two inches of dirt covering the top and pulled it up, and scraped off the clinging brown earth so he could see all the money without blemish. He rolled the two dollar bills from his pocket tightly into a thin, cigarette-sized cylinder and poked them down into the round center of the other bills already in the jar. They unraveled partway and expanded. Again, almost as badly as a week ago, he wanted to take all the money out and count it, but he held himself back and quickly resealed and reburied the jar for fear he might lose control. He didn’t want to know for sure how much was there. He’d barely had enough time to forget since the last time he counted, and that was, let’s see . . . He fixed his mind away from figuring and relaid the tarp and blankets. He really didn’t have any idea what the money would be used for—if it would be used at all—but felt sure it would buy something—something big—something that, once he had it, would completely change his life. He went back to reading and daydreaming.

  SEVEN

  In the world of selling newspapers, a roamer is not universally well liked. Many times each day he will—by virtue of necessity sometimes—step on a part of the city which belongs to another paper barker, thus automatically drawing down that person’s economic potential by one half. Even if his intentions are to do nothing more than walk across the block in order to get to another, he’ll attract the malicious suspicions of the person who paid money for the sole privilege of working that part of the street. In most cases, it’s not even necessary to step on it. It is usually enough for most paper boys with stands, or spots on corners, just to see a roamer in order to flush up immediate thoughts of murder. After all, they figure, I’ve paid good money for this spot and it isn’t fair that someone like that should be allowed to go just anywhere he has a mind to. Though basically individualistic and tough-minded by nature, in this matter they were as uniform as a row of clean soldiers: they didn’t like roamers.

  Because July Montgomery was aware such feelings existed, he went out of his way to keep from making his presence felt, though in complete honesty it was also true that he was guilty—on one or two occasions—of going out of his way to catch an opulent group of bus riders before a certain particularly unpleasant fellow would be able to get to his stand, thus completely gutting his early-morning market and leaving him stranded in his barren zone, his customers reading the sports page and munching doughnuts.

  Earl Schmidt had a corner on 21st and Market, having bought it from Gary Snider who’d had it before him and paid $200 for it. It was a good corner, on several bus routes, near a quick order restaurant, and had a lot of traffic down both sides, and on Sundays he could make $20 shoving papers into the windows of the cars. He was a year older than July, but short for his age, his hair chopped off in a fashion that his father, a labor leader, called a crew. He wasn’t allowed to have it any other way.

  Earl didn’t like July. When July’d come that first day, his face as pale as a sheet, looking frightenedly, stupidly, around at all of them, wondering if there was work—from the first moment Earl’d thought, Now there’s a farmer if I ever saw one. Farthead. How’d you like somebody to kick your ass?

  His first impressions of most people were not too good, but in July’s case they never improved. They actually got worse. And after July began working 21st and Market and once sold out a half-bundle there before Earl arrived, the mere sight of him made Earl seethe with rage. Twice, in front of the other boys who picked up their papers at the 24th Street pickup, he’d called him out, threatening and ridiculing him, but both times July’d backed down so graciously and with such humor that for the sake of his own good name Earl couldn’t press him further. This salted his private anger.

  I’ll grind him up. Earl thought things like that to himself when he was alone. His hatred was so perfect, so single-minded, so completely pure hot, that it was almost a pleasure, and sometimes he would sip at it all morning. I’ll eat him alive and tear out his heart. Then after the cat began following July wherever he went, and even the others who didn’t like him because he was a roamer thought it was so cute, Earl could hardly keep from fainting at the sweetness of his loathing. Those days he couldn’t work, when his father had him enrolled in a once-a-week course offe
red by the Army called Command Tactics, most of all he missed that first glimpse of July when they all came together to get their papers off the truck.

  He decided on an ambush. Every day for a month he thought to himself: Now, how is this going to be? What will I do? What will I say just before I flatten his face? Who do I want to be with me to watch? He set the stage for it many times, in many different places and would think it through, sweet, all the way up until his friends were dragging him away from the bloody mass of jelly, saying, OK, Earl, the little fucker got what he deserved, better not kill him. Jesus, your fists are like lightning. Then he’d begin it again, this time in a warehouse full of coffins, rain on the metal roof, July hearing his name called and freezing in fear.

  “What I’m thinking is an ambush. We’ll get him just as he comes by that alley in back of Jack’s Place, and take him off down in there and . . .”

  Al Decker and Marty Spinner looked at each other without any obvious expression, keeping away from Earl’s livid eyes. “Come on,” Al began, very cautiously, “just tell him to keep off your corner. Get as tough as you want to, but, Christ, jumping him—three of us.”

  “If that’s what you want,” Earl said, nearly shouting in excitement, “then I’ll take him myself. We’ll get him back in there and you two can just stand back and I’ll take him myself.”

  “Come on—” said Marty, but was cut off before he could continue.

  “All I want you guys for is to drag me off him. When I fight, something snaps out in me and I can’t control myself. I nearly killed a kid several weeks ago over in Fairmount. I just snap out.”

  Al and Marty looked away from the eyes again and back to each other. Naturally, they weren’t about to say anything about the only time they had seen Earl in a fight, which had been maybe a year ago and it had been more like him being snapped instead of snapping out—though clearly the other guy had been bigger. The hatred was a little frightening to them, and they were hesitant about saying something to draw it toward themselves.