Rock Island Line

by David Rhodes

  Then came the outskirts of New York, the Tappan Zee Bridge, and he forgot everything but his worries. He had no idea what he was carrying, but his imagination contained everything from kidnapped children to plastic explosives. Whoever was after him, he was sure, would stop at nothing to put a bullet through his head. He became afraid, and felt very foolish for being coerced into it in the first place. If it was so important, why didn’t Carroll himself drive? Why should he be taking any risks? What was this all about? He thought he might just pull the truck over to the side of the road and leave it . . . perhaps all criminals actually involved with danger were young and very foolish and didn’t know enough not to have anything to do with it. But all these thoughts went up the stack as soon as July saw the toll booths and the flashing lights, STOP AHEAD, PAY TOLL, ALL TRUCKS TO THE RIGHT. This is it, he thought, and touched the brakes. They locked the wheels tight and nearly put him through the windshield, the tires screaming hideously. He eased up on them and shifted down into a gear much too low and the motor and transmission sounded as if they’d given up. No one else was on the road, nothing for the people in the booths to look at but him. Be careful going through the city! He was a hundred yards from the booths and was already doing six or seven miles an hour.

  The huge truck limped all the way up to the flashing red light and stopped.

  July rolled down the window, reached into his pocket, pulled out one of the bills Franklin had put there and handed it to the attendant, his eyes half closed in expectation of the worst.

  “Say, you better pull over,” said the man, taking the bill inside, “and take a nap. Looks like you were about asleep back there.”

  July tried to breathe, but continued holding his breath.

  “Jesus, this the smallest bill you got?” The attendant was back at his window, holding out a $100 bill.

  July silently cursed Carroll.

  “ Yes,” he said. “Sorry. It’s out of that secret little compartment in back of my wallet, you know?”

  “OK. Say, what you carrying?”

  “Pig iron: turnbuckles and transmission carcasses.”

  “Just a second.” The attendant went three booths down with the $100 bill. July almost gave himself up for gone and was sitting over on the seat, ready to get out the opposite door if need be and run for all he was worth, when the attendant returned with the change and a stamped receipt.

  “Really, buddy, I’d pull over if I were you.”

  “Think I will,” said July, carelessly cramming the bills (most of them ones and fives) down into his pocket. “Thanks.” Other cars were coming now and he pulled away, heading for the New England Thruway.

  For the next hundred miles, past weigh stations and highway-patrol stations, he thought, Why’d he want to know what I was carrying? What interest could he have? It was impossible for him to accept that it was just one of those unexplainable examples of someone, to no end and for no gain to himself, making a friendly gesture. No, more likely it was a government man hoping to catch him in a lie.

  Into Boston and through to Chelsea.

  “Say, sorry to bother you, but could you tell me where Bettle Street is?”

  “Three blocks ahead. It’s a one-way.”

  “Thanks.”

  The number Franklin had given him was the address of a large, low-lying building that offered only two doors, one very large and obviously a truck entrance and one small, for people. There were no windows anywhere. He pulled into the drive, up to the door, feeling quite inebriated with having succeeded in his ordeal and expected to be greeted with excitement. The small door opened far enough for a face to be thrust through it, then closed. The big overhead door swung back in two pieces. A man’s arm came into the opening and waved him forward. July drove in, the headlights of the truck illuminating thousands of boxes, both wooden and cardboard, stacked to the ceiling. When he could see through the mirrors that he’d cleared the door, he stopped.

  “Keep going,” said a voice.

  He went on several feet, then several yards.

  “Far enough,” came the voice again and he stopped, cut the motor and lights and sat in a penumbra of exhaustion.

  The door was pushed open. “OK. Let’s go,” said a harsh voice.

  He climbed down onto a concrete floor.

  “Here you are.” A bill was handed him by a large man with a shrunken face, with skin like white-and-pink scales. “Now run along.”

  Once he was outside, the door was closed behind him and he heard it lock. He noticed that the sun was just coming up and looked down at his hand as he walked along the street, having forgotten that he was carrying the money. Fifty dollars. A lousy fifty bucks! he thought. Guys do what I just did all the time for a lousy fifty bucks! Those two guys back in Philly were going to make this run together—like they’d probably done how many times before—for twenty-five bucks apiece. July felt cheapened. He managed to flag down a cab and told the driver to take him to the nearest hotel, where he rented a room, had a six-pack of beer brought up to him and fell asleep before he could finish more than four. It was nearly dark again when he woke up and began looking into transportation back to Philadelphia.

  Arriving by train at two a.m., he was reminded of how he’d come there years ago, small and lonely, an experience in a washroom in Cleveland hanging over him. He felt ashamed for himself. A hazy noise filled the station. Marginal people sat on the benches, neither looking at him nor away. He felt an urge to go home—back to Sharon Center, to stand in his father’s garage and let the feel of men come into him from the tools, watch the telephone wires cross the street to his house and the barn swallows line up as though waiting for a parade and old Mr. Stanton, blind as a toad, come picking his way from his yellow house a quarter-mile down the road, tap the elm tree at the edge of Millers’ yard, abruptly turn and walk into the open garage door to spend an hour talking to his father about the old days when his grandfather Wilson tracked a chicken thief with his dog clear over to Frytown and up to the house of an old, bitter woman who lived in it with six cats and could hardly have lifted a chicken, let alone carried three of them out of the house, through the briers and back through the woods. No, he thought, I won’t allow myself to feel this way.

  When July arrived at his room and turned on the light, a brand-new television set stared at him from the middle of the room. A red ribbon was tied around it and Happy Birthday written on a card in Carroll’s handwriting, though his birthday was not for four months. Upon opening his refrigerator he found it crammed with food and expensive cat dinners. He took out a can of beer and sank into his favorite chair, underneath the pictures of his parents. Butch came over and sat on his lap, but jumped down when a drop of the cold liquid fell on his head. A copy of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams lay half opened on the floor and July picked it up and found the faint pencil mark where he’d left off reading. In his exhaustion he let a couple of sentences flash across his retina, but had no power to decipher them. He thought of himself impersonally, and tried to assess how far he’d come. For a moment, because of the weakness of his mind and body, and the sensation of having finally returned home after an ordeal, he wondered, What is all this worth? What good is learning this? Doesn’t a dog or a baboon live just as well without it? Isn’t it all pretension and snobbish amusement? In the final end result, wouldn’t it be better just to be a libertine, or work as a geek in the circus?

  He dragged himself off to bed, and under the pillow found a scrap of paper money. But in the darkness he couldn’t tell its value, and hadn’t enough ambition to get up and turn on the light. Butch jumped up and fell to purring in the hollow of his leg.

  He gave Carroll every opportunity to explain the circumstances leading up to the previous evening, and even asked him once. He declined to say anything.

  But July’s curiosity was aflame, and though he continued his arduous studies (aside from his job he spent six or seven hours reading, and weekends found him in the museum and library), he still found tim
e to wonder about the mysterious truck. Sometimes late in the evening he’d go into the basement and check the many locked doors, hoping to find one left open by mistake. He scavenged through the offices upstairs in search of keys to open them and papers that might help to explain what he didn’t know.

  One afternoon on a trip to New Jersey to look at some kitchen tables whose tops were supposed to withstand setting down a hot frying pan, Franklin said, “You’ve got to stop poking around.”

  July drove on without speaking. Carroll was quiet for several miles and the silence between them was disturbed only by the thumping of the tires in the cracks of the concrete highway.

  “What do you know?”

  “That you have four thieves who work more or less full time for you, and maybe one more in Pittsburgh.”

  “What else?”

  “The truck I drove to Boston three months ago belongs to you, indirectly.”

  “Mmmm.” Franklin turned on the radio, dialed in three separate advertisements and turned it off.

  “This country’s run by a set of laws,” he began, his hands beginning to gesture. “A set of laws put together by men of Congress, each and every one of them out for his own interests. A law gets passed when a majority of them can get together in a block and vote legislation in over the opposition of a minority, whom the law will not help. Their interest is money. The President’s interest is money. No President ever leaves office before he’s at least a millionaire. This whole country’s interest, down to nearly every waking moment, is money. People kill themselves and each other because of it. Work ethic, social ethic, business ethic—nothing. Only a money ethic. Wars are fought for it. It’s the only really sacred thing in the world, but the least talked about. A normal man, during the normal course of each day, thinks about it between three and four hours—that’s an average—and that’s thinking about it directly.” July began to interrupt, but Franklin cut him off. “But there’s very little talking done about it. To live in my neighborhood you’d have to be making—” July was frowning. Carroll’s voice level rose. “Wait a minute. Look, if you think this is all crass, or beneath your comprehension, then you better grow up and look around. Just what do you think ambition means? Or incentive, or security, or well-being, or power, or self-betterment? Name me one smart man who is broke. If money’s of comparatively no importance to you, then you’re comparatively low in the brains department, because it is the most important!”

  “There’s religion,” said July stubbornly.

  “Pooh! Too many marriages break up because of money problems, or are formed out of greed. Priests ask for money to cancel sins. Christianity spread because the church was wealthier than any other institution. Try to get the guy in that car there to do something for you with a promise of everlasting reward, then try flashing a hundred in his face.

  “To live in my neighborhood, you’d have to be making fifty thousand a year. Now nobody—nobody—who’s making that kind of money is secure about his income. There’re no unions to protect that figure. He’s constantly thinking, Maybe I can make more, maybe I’ll fold. The anxiety level is staggering. But do you think you ever hear anyone talk about it? Never. It’s ‘Nice weather, how’s boating on the lake this year? Seen any bluebirds? Ford’s got quite a little car this year. Let me tell you about our trip to the Smokies.’

  “Now, I’m not trying to say that everyone’s a crook, or that everyone would break the law if the odds looked right, so long as they could afford a good lawyer or a judge. No, there’s a sucker born every minute, and some people, it’s true, never grow up.

  “The last thing you’d ever ask a man about is how much money he has, or what he does to get it—because having it is respectability. So it’s like this—want a chocolate bar?” July shook his head. Carroll ripped open the wrapper and, breaking the candy into its small squares, popped them into his mouth. “It’s win or lose. Everything’s a gamble. Start a gas station and maybe you’ll make it and maybe you won’t. It depends on a million and one things, none of them liable to come up twice in a lifetime. It’s knowing when to get out, when to get in, when to split up and when to come together. The government puts a tariff on certain imports that we could normally buy very cheaply from a country that does a better job of putting them out; hence, certain manufacturers are protected and make more money, but that also opens up an illegal trade—smuggling. The cost of losing is greater, of course, maybe three or four years of your life, but then the profits are greater and guaranteed so long as you don’t get caught. No worries about rising costs of materials or labor, and the officers of the law can be bought as well, if need be. Same way with anything illegal. The demand is always there, the market never closes.

  “Look at it this way. Some fellow breaks into a building and steals ten thousand dollars’ worth of office equipment: typewriters, duplicating machines and such. Now, the owner of that office, he goes first, if he’s smart, to his insurance company and collects the ten thousand that he insured it for, after some kicking and groaning; then he goes out into the black market and buys the equipment he needs (maybe even his own stuff, who knows?) for two thousand, giving the middleman a nice fifteen-hundred-dollar profit (five hundred of which goes into protection), fills up his office and that’s the end of it. If he’s robbed again, the whole chain can start over: otherwise just the insurance company wins (and they win, by the way, because of other people getting knocked over).”

  That same week, without explaining why, Carroll took July to New York and onto the floor of the Stock Exchange, where old men took notes on small white pads.

  It was Carroll and not July who felt that they had to leave. On the street outside he looked tired and a little frightened. They walked half a block. Then he wanted to turn around and go back; but just as they reached the entrance to the main room, where the electricity from inside seemed to crack and spark around the frame of the huge doors, he stopped, turned again and led July away. An ashen color had come over his face. Back at the car he said, “Drive home,” and was silent nearly all the way to Philadelphia.

  “I went broke there once,” he said. “I was young. I thought I knew what had to happen. I was sure wheat had to keep going up. When they dumped it, a hush came over the whole building. There were some there who weren’t watching it, of course, and they searched the boards like madmen to find out what had happened, then cared no more than if it were a fluctuation in the temperature. You can’t imagine it. Whole lives ruined in a matter of seconds. My wish is that someday you’ll make it there. Someday you’ll beat them.”

  “Beat who?” asked July.

  “The ones who never lose.”

  July’s studies became more difficult. His ability to concentrate was coming apart at the seams—as if there were differences trying to get worked out inside him. Partially it was the $50,000. He knew Franklin didn’t make that much, but he also knew that he needed to, that he couldn’t live anywhere but where he lived, or on any different terms, and it was that red margin that made July wonder. Still, if he could choose, he’d be Franklin just as surely as when they’d first eaten breakfast together and July had noticed his clean shoes and the way people jumped when he called their names.

  One night that week Franklin came up to his room with a round paper sack under his arm. It was only eight o’clock and he’d never come so early before. Also, his Cadillac wasn’t parked across the street. He looked as though he’d been walking all night in the streets. July thought it very strange.

  “I’ve brought a cold bottle of wine to share,” he stated as he came in. “You wouldn’t have a corkscrew around here, would you?”

  “I don’t think I do have.”

  “Well, get a knife, and some glasses. We’ll cut it open.” He set to work with the knife, paring away at the cork, and finally pushed it down into the bottle. “To your health,” he said, when the glasses were poured. They drank. “What’s this book here?” He picked up a copy of Plato’s Phaedrus from the floor.


  “That’s a book by Plato.”

  “Terrific, keep to it. You’ve got the right idea—learn a few of the old ones, then when someone tries to make a fool of you, you can cut them down with a couple of lines from the ancients.” He put the book down. Then, later, he said, “Well, anyway, you just keep on with what you’re doing.”

  From where July sat he could see outside. Franklin’s Cadillac pulled up across the street, stopping so abruptly that the tires gave a quick little squeal. In the frosted light he saw Mrs. Carroll jump from the car and walk fast over to “the building,” as July had come to think of it. The door downstairs opened and slammed.

  “Franklin!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Franklin! I know you’re here somewhere.” Her voice seemed frightening to July, even coming up through the floor. It was so emotional. Franklin put his finger to his lips and whispered, “Sshhh,” turning off the overhead light while he did so.

  They sat in the darkness and listened to her walking and yelling downstairs, listened while she went into the basement and for several minutes was panting and screaming right outside his room. July tried to keep hold of his memory of Carroll, without the least concern, putting his finger to his lips as though to say: Nevermind, there’s nothing to it. Just a little game she plays. And he told himself over again that Franklin knew more about the situation than he did. It was all he could do not to run out and call to her. It made him feel that he was partly to blame, sitting there hiding in the dark. The first feelings of resentment toward Franklin that he’d ever had began to show themselves, but the utter shame he felt in having them rolled them back up like a scroll.