Hard Rain Falling

by Don Carpenter

  “Aw hell, I quit,” Jack said. “How about puttin my time on the wire?”

  John looked at him carefully, and said, “Okay. One time.”

  Jack grinned. “How do you know I’ll pay?”

  “Shee. You’ll pay. You got to, or you don’t get to hang out in here.”

  Still grinning, Jack shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, I guess you got me by the balls.”

  “I guess so.”

  Jack went back outside. It was drizzling slightly, and the cold moisture felt good on his face. He walked up toward the Corner, up Sixth Avenue, and stopped once in a record store to listen to some new Stan Kenton. It was one of the things you could do if you didn’t have any money. But it got boring, finally, and he went on. Everything seemed out of kilter. It hadn’t been like this at the orphanage; there you had something you were supposed to be doing all the time. He hadn’t expected to miss that. But he did. He had to admit it. He went past the Orpheum Theater on Broadway. A war picture was showing, and he wondered if he wanted to see it. He knew a way to get in without paying; you went up to the guy taking tickets and said, “I’m supposed to pick up my kid sister,” and just walked past him. If he had any guts he’d throw you out, but most of them didn’t. A couple of weeks before, Jack and about seven others who had been hanging around the Corner bored and broke had busted into the United Artists by running single-file past the ticket-taker without saying a word, running up the stairs to the balcony and then splitting up and taking seats. None of them had been caught, and later, in the middle of the picture, Denny, sitting down in the front of the balcony, yelled, “Count off!” and Jack yelled, “One!” and somebody else, “Two!” while the usherettes ran around looking for them. It had been fun, but stupid. He did not want to see the war movie. It would be full of shit. He walked on up to the drugstore on the Corner and drank a Coke and waited for something interesting to happen.

  Two

  His friend, the red-haired Denny Mellon, came into the drugstore about an hour later, and by this time Jack was almost going crazy from boredom. He was not the only member of the Broadway gang in the place, but he sat by himself anyway, to nourish his boredom; he did not like the bunch at the other end of the counter, grouped around Clancy Phipps. Clancy had just done six months in the county jail for stealing a portable radio out of a car, and everyone was listening to him be ironic and hard about life in jail. Denny sat down next to Jack and said, “Shit.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh, balls. I took this nigger kid up to the Rialto, meanin to hustle him out of all his gold. I had a great scheme goin. I was gonna get him to play snooker with Hatch and them old farts on the middle table, get his confidence all built up, you know, an then when you showed up, get him in a nine-ball game between you and somebody like Bobby Case, an cut him up. You know, you play safe, and Case shoot out. The best part is, he’d beat Hatch and them guys easy, see, and then we’d get all his gold an all their gold, too. Only, you didn’t show up an didn’t show up, and in comes Case with that crazy bastard Kol Mano, an they got him.”

  “How much did they get off him?”

  “Christ, about fifty bucks. Shee-fucking-it!”

  Jack laughed. “It wasn’t your money.”

  “It should of been.”

  “So you’re broke, too.”

  Denny showed his teeth in an Irish grin. “Nope. I got about ten bucks.”

  “Loan me five.”

  “Nope. In about ten minutes I’m gonna walk down to the Model Hotel and buy myself a nice juicy piece of ass. I been thinkin about it all day. I ain’t had a piece of ass in a week.”

  “You’re a real buddy,” Jack said. Suddenly he wanted a girl, very badly. He had been to the Model and the Rex, and a couple of the other whorehouses, with Denny and alone, and right now that seemed like the most delightful thing they could do. It was so nice and businesslike, and the girls smelled so good, and seemed so attractive....

  “Listen,” he said to Denny. “You got ten, we take five each and that gets us both in. You just can’t leave me sittin here.”

  “Why not?” Denny grinned. “Tell you what: while I’m sittin there on the bed watchin the girl strip, I’ll think about you, just once. Okay?”

  “You prick,” Jack said, but he knew that Denny would take him along. It was one of the things he liked about Denny. Jack could not understand why Denny was so friendly, so open and so easy with his money, when he had any, but that didn’t make any difference. It didn’t bother Jack that he would be bumming Denny’s last five dollars, either. He reasoned that if Denny didn’t want to share it, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t forcing him.

  “Let’s go,” Jack said.

  “Naw, it’s too early. Let’s try to hold off. But man, I do really feel horny, don’t you?” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “That nigger kid just run away from home. Man, he shoots good pool, but he’s a fish. Anybody with larceny in his heart would of smelled a dead rat, the way them guys was cuttin him up. But he just looked more and more pissed off, and kep shootin better an better; but no use. The best fuckin stick in the world can’t beat that kind of action.”

  “If somebody pulled that shit on me, I’d break their fuckin heads in,” Jack said.

  “Sure you would, but what’s a little guy to do?”

  “Fuck the little guys. Hey, let’s go!”

  Denny laughed. “Smell that sweet pussy!” He wheeled around on the stool and stood up. “Let’s race down Broadway!” He ran out of the drugstore, and Jack followed.

  They raced down the full length of Portland’s main street, dodging in among the evening crowds, bumping into not a few irate citizens. The light was red when they got to Burnside, but they ran across the street anyway, causing cars to brake sharply and drivers to blow their horns in anger and frustration. Jack, dancing through the traffic behind Denny, raised both hands in the standard gesture of contempt, his middle fingers extended. When they got to the other side and were among the skid row crowds, they slowed down to a walk, panting heavily and catching their breath. Above them, under the red clouds, two gigantic neon signs threw colored light on the wet streets: one saying JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD with a traveling scriptural message beneath it in blinking lights; the other a gigantic glass being filled with beer from a gigantic tap, all in blinking lights: BLITZ-WEINHARD BEER.

  The Model Hotel was on the corner of Sixth and Couch Streets, above a grocery store, and had two entrances. The boys ran up the stairs leading from the unlighted side entrance, and even before they got to the top they could smell the strange, exciting woman-perfume smell of the whorehouse.

  “Oh, boy!” Denny said. He grinned at Jack eagerly, and Jack’s manly pose, just assumed, collapsed in giggles.

  The maid came around the corner of the corridor and smiled at them and said, “Evenin, boys. Is you of age?”

  “I’m thirty-six,” Denny said.

  “I’m forty-two,” Jack said.

  The maid laughed and led them down the corridor to the waiting room.

  Less than an hour later, they were standing on the corner of Sixth and Burnside, wondering what to do with themselves. They had spent all their money, compared girls, and exhausted the subject of sex entirely. Now Jack was feeling restless and irritated with himself for no reason, and wondering what he was going to do for scuffle money. Without any particular destination in mind, they began walking up Burnside, toward the stadium area. Denny was silent as they walked, but Jack could not keep his thoughts to himself.

  “God damn it, I need gold. We got to figure out some way of gettin some gold. It’s not even eight o’clock, for Christ’s sake.”

  “What’er you so pissed about? I’m broke, too.”

  “Yeah, but you can always go home and get eats and a bed. I’m out in the stony, man.”

  Denny put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Lissen, you can sack out at my place for a couple days. I told you that before.”

  “Fuck it! I want money!”
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br />   They stopped walking. They were in a section of automobile showrooms and deserted used-car lots. Jack was wishing desperately that some fool citizen would come along so Jack could smash him, drag him in back of the used cars, and take his money. But there were no citizens around. There weren’t even very many cars going by.

  He looked at the used-car lot. In the back there was a small white shack with a night light showing through the window in the door.

  “Let’s bust in there and see if they left any gold around,” he said to Denny.

  Denny looked surprised. “Okay,” he said. He followed Jack across the gravel of the lot and watched as Jack picked up a rag, wrapped it around his fist and punched the glass in the door. Jack reached through and opened the door from the inside, and they both stepped in, Denny throwing one glance back at the street.

  There were two desks with barely room to get between them, papers all over the tops; a few calendars on the walls, and a large rack with keys on nails. Jack started going through the drawers of one desk, and after a moment’s hesitation, Denny started in on the other. All they found were blank forms, messy files of completed loan applications and title changes, and half an apple, which Denny threw in the wastebasket.

  “Shit,” he said. “We left fingerprints all over the goddam place.”

  “So what? Nobody’s got my prints. They got yours?”

  “Hell no. Fuck it. No money. Let’s get out of here.”

  “You scared?”

  “Course I’m scared, you nut. Let’s go.”

  Jack was looking at the board of keys. “Let’s take one of their goddam cars and race hell out of it.”

  They took the keys to a 1946 Cadillac, found the car, and drove it off the lot, smashing through the thin guard chain across the driveway, hearing the posts holding the chain splinter and crunch. They drove up Burnside, Jack behind the wheel. It never entered his mind that he had just committed grand theft, among other major and minor crimes. All he knew was that at last he was behind the wheel of a fine automobile, there was plenty of gas in the tank, and the evening was ahead of them. He did not think about money again for almost an hour.

  After taking the Cadillac out on the highway and opening it up a few times, Jack and Denny came back to Portland, and for a while drove through the expensive curved streets of Council Crest. Driving the big, powerful car at top speeds had been terribly exciting, and now they were calming down, not talking, just looking out the windows at the rich people’s houses. The plan was to abandon the car up here and walk back down to the downtown section.

  “Hey, I been in that house,” Denny said, pointing. Jack pulled the car over, and peered through the gloom. The house Denny meant was back behind a hedge and trees, and the second story, which they could see from where they were, was dark and deserted-looking.

  “You remember that kid Weinfeld?” Denny asked. “This is his joint. I come up here and had lunch. He owed me eight bucks from snooker an we come up here to collect. God, what a mansion! You never seen anything like it. They got a room for every fuckin thing you can think of; the old man’s got his own bar, all that crap. They must be damn near millionaires.”

  Jack looked up at the blank dark windows of the building, set in its framework of damp firs, beneath a roof that seemed to have a dozen chimneys. “God,” he said.

  “They’re really rich bastards,” Denny said. “In fact, they’re takin a vacation in Mexico. Weinfeld come around last week askin if anybody wanted any dirty pictures or anythin.”

  “The place is empty?”

  Denny looked at Jack. He began to grin. “Empty as hell, man. What’er we waitin for? Let’s ditch the car an bust in!”

  “Sure to be money laying around someplace,” Jack said. “What a fuckin break!”

  The Weinfelds were not rich and the house was not a “mansion,” but the boys had no experience at all with the really rich, and so could not tell the difference. Weinfeld owned a small shoe store specializing in work shoes and odd sizes. He made a comfortable living, and his home was a comfortable one; in 1947 it would have been worth about $20,000. It was surrounded by hedge, lawn, and trees, and there was heavy, ornate-looking furniture in all the rooms; deep, wall-to-wall carpeting in most of the downstairs, and one very large, extremely beautiful blue Persian carpet in the living room, its border ornate designs in white, maroon, gold, and blue. The boys stood in the middle of this carpet, looking around themselves at the most splendid home they had ever seen outside the movies. Jack noticed that most of the windows in the house had the thick double-draperies that could be used in blackouts, and so he pulled them and turned the lights on. There was a large fireplace, and over it a mantel adorned with small delicate glass figurines of animals; and above that there was a picture—an oil painting—of an attractive, pleasant-looking woman in a white dress with a blue sash. The picture had its own little light above it, which went on with the wall lights when Jack flicked the switch. (The switch bothered him; it made no sound, no click, but the lights went on anyway.)

  “My God,” Jack said.

  “What’d I tell you?” Denny said proudly. “Aint it a mansion? We ate lunch up in his room. He’s got a room all to himself up there, with his own desk, and all kinds of crap all over the walls. He must be a lonely fucker, er why would he come down to the poolhall?”

  For a while they forgot all about their purpose in breaking into the house, and explored.

  “Holy cats,” Jack said. “Did you see this shower? One sprayer up on top, four on the sides. Man, they must stand in there and just plain go out of their minds. An the control aint two handles, it’s one that goes from cold to hot.”

  The master bedroom was on the main floor and in the center was a large double bed, with gilt posts and a white headboard. All the furniture in the bedroom matched and there were sets of pictures on the wall. On the bed was a coverlet of gold satin, and Jack could not resist throwing himself onto the bed. “Man!” was all he could say. He lay on his back and looked up at the crystal light fixture in the ceiling.

  Denny began at last to go through the drawers in the high bureau. “This guy must have fifty pairs of socks,” he commented. In one top drawer he found cuff links, an old worn gold ring (which Denny pocketed), and assorted trinkets, but no cash. Jack got up and helped him, going through the woman’s vanity table. Then both of them examined the suits in the man’s closet, finding only ticket stubs and a few pennies.

  “Where’s that bar?” Jack wanted to know. “Maybe there’s some booze. I could use a drink.”

  “It’s in the basement. Let’s go.”

  The party room had a red tile floor, a fireplace ( another one! Jack thought with amazement), brightly colored cushions on metal furniture, and a polished wood bar at one end, with three leatherette-capped stools. Jack sat at the bar and Denny went around behind. There were several bottles of liquor visible on the backbar, and Denny discovered a small refrigerator, which proved to be about half-full of bottled beer. Denny held up one of the glistening bottles and said, “Lookie. West Coast brand. What fuggin cheapskates. What’ll it be?”

  “A boilermaker, my good man.”

  “Lessee,” said Denny, examining the bottles on the backbar; “do you want Scotch, bourbon, rye, or maybe gin?”

  Jack giggled. “Make it Scotch and rye. I ain’t never had either.”

  Denny took two pilsner glasses, put them on the bar, half filled them with a mixture of whiskies, and then added beer from one of the bottles, which he then tipped up and drained. He and Jack tapped their glasses together and drank.

  “Whew. Jesus H. Christ!” Denny said after a moment.

  Jack grinned at him expectantly. “Let’s have some more.”

  “You know, this has been a hell of a night, man. We get laid, race all around hell in a Caddie, an here we are drinkin expensive booze. Do you reckon this is how the rich folks live?”

  “If we only had some money,” Jack said. “I wonder where they keep the spare cash.�
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  “Have a nother drink, baby.”

  “I wonder when they’re comin home?”

  “Aw hell, I seen the kid Wednesday or Tuesday. They won’t be back for a week. Hey, we can stay all fuckin night.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Have another couple of drinks, find the money, sleep, an cut out just before dawn.”

  “What if we find a couple thousand bucks! Hey, we could go to Mexico, too!”

  “Lemme try some of that gin now,” Jack said. “I never drank any of that, either.”

  Three

  Billy lay in his bed in the Couch Street hotel and half-listened to a dim, fragmented conversation between a man and a woman in the next room. He was familiar with the subject of the conversation; he had heard it a thousand times at home: The war was over, the easy West Coast money was being pulled out of Negro reach, prices were going crazy, finance companies were getting stonyhearted again...Billy grinned bitterly. It’s like they wanted the war back, so they could make more money.

  The man in the next room was trying to convince the woman that they should move to Detroit, where he was certain he could get work; she, on the other hand, did not want to leave her mother’s family. The argument went back and forth dully, and Billy stopped hearing it. He had his own troubles.

  He got out of bed and took off his jockey shorts and went to the sink in the corner, turning on the hot-water tap. A thin stream of water fizzed out, barely lukewarm, and Billy took his washcloth out of his bag and gave himself a sponge bath, standing on the hotel towel and drying off with his own thick, fluffy towel. It always made him feel good to get clean, made him feel sharp and aware, and he smiled at himself in the mirror, and then, for fun, showed his teeth in a chimpanzee grin. Still naked, he brushed his teeth. They were small, well-formed, beautifully white, and he was very proud of them, as proud as he was of the small corded muscles of his arms and legs. He was skinny, bony-shouldered, yes, but it was deceptive. He watched the muscles of his forearms as he scrubbed his socks against each other and then rinsed them out; muscles he had built by doing pull-ups and the rope-climb at school; and for a moment he regretted having left school. But the feeling did not last; if he lacked the easy comfort of going to school, he had something far better—his freedom of action. That was more important than reading all those books about the white world that were such lies even he could see through them. This was much better.