Dad sent me to look for Gene because he didn’t come home for supper at six. I found him in the poolroom playing dollar-a-hand poker pool.
“Hey, little brother,” he waved to me from across the smoky poolroom, “come on here and I’ll let you hold my cards!” I went over. He grinned to the goofs he was playing with. “You watch out now, boys,” he said, “my little brother always brings me luck. Not that I need it,” he explained to me, winking.
Yeah, I always brought him luck. I kept track of the game. I figured out what order to take the balls down. I reminded him not to put somebody else out and to play the next guy safe instead of slamming off some cornball shot. When I did all that Gene won – because I brought him luck. Yeah.
Gene handed me his cards. “You wouldn’t believe these two,” he said to me out of the corner of his mouth, “genuine plough jockeys. These boys couldn’t find their ass in the dark with both hands. I’m fifteen dollars to the good.”
I admit they didn’t look too swift. The biggest one, who was big, was wearing an out-of-town team jacket, a Massey-Ferguson cap, and shit-kicker wellingtons. He was maybe twenty-one, but his skin hadn’t cleared up yet by no means. His pan looked like all-dressed pizza, heavy on the cheese. His friend was a dinky little guy with his hair designed into a duck’s ass. The kind of guy who hates the Beatles. About two feet of a dirty comb was sticking out of his ass pocket.
Gene broke the rack and the nine went down. His shot.
“Dad’s looking for you. He wants to know if you passed,” I said.
“You could’ve told him.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Lemme see the cards.” I showed him. He had a pair of treys, a six, a seven, and a lady. Right away he stopped to pocket the three. I got a teacher who always talks about thought processes. Gene doesn’t have them.
“Look at the table,” I said. “Six first and you can come around up here,” I pointed.
“No coaching,” said Pizza Face. I could see this one was a poor loser.
Gene shifted his stance and potted the six.
“What now?” he asked.
“The queen, and don’t forget to put pants on her.” I paused. “Pop figured you were going to make it. He really did, Gene.”
“So tough titty. I didn’t. Who the hell cares? He had your suck card to slobber over, didn’t he?” He drilled the lady in the side pocket. No backspin. He’d hooked himself on the three. “Fuck.”
“The old man is on graveyard shift. You better go home and face the music before he goes to work. It’ll be worse in the morning when he needs sleep,” I warned him.
“Screw him.”
I could see Gene eyeballing the four. He didn’t have any four in his hand, so I called him over and showed him his cards. “You can’t shoot the four. It’s not in your hand.”
“Just watch me.” He winked. “I’ve been doing it all night. It’s all pitch and no catch with these prizes.” Gene strolled back to the table and coolly stroked down the four. He had shape for the three which slid in the top pocket like shit through a goose. He cashed in on the seven. “That’s it, boys,” he said. “That’s all she wrote.”
I was real nervous. I tried to bury the hand in the deck but the guy with the runny face stopped me. He was getting tired of losing, I guess. Gene doesn’t even cheat smart. You got to let them win once in a while.
“Gimme them cards,” he said. He started counting the cards off against the balls, flipping down the boards on the felt. “Three.” He nodded. “Six, seven, queen. I guess you got them all,” he said slowly, with a look on his face like he was pissing ground glass.
That’s when Duck Ass chirped up. “Hey, Marvin,” he said, “that guy shot the four. He shot the four.”
“Nah,” said Gene.
Marvin studied on this for a second, walked over to the table and pulled the four ball out of the pocket. Just like little Jack Horner lifting the plum out of the pie. “Yeah,” he said. “You shot the four.”
“Jeez,” said Gene, “I guess I did. Honest mistake. Look, here’s a dollar for each of you.” He took two bills out of his shirt pocket. “You got to pay for your mistakes is what I was always taught.”
“I bet you he’s been cheating all along,” said Duck Ass.
“My brother don’t cheat,” I said.
“I want all my money back,” said Marvin. Quite loud. Loud enough that some heads turned and a couple of tables stopped playing. There was what you would call a big peanut gallery, it being the beginning of vacation and the place full of junior high kids and stags.
“You can kiss my ass, bozo,” said Gene. “Like my brother here said, I never cheated nobody in my life.”
“You give us our money back,” threatened Marvin, “or I’ll pull your head off, you skinny little prick.”
Guys were starting to drift towards us, curious. The manager, Pat Bert, was easing his guts out from behind the cash register.
“Give them their money, Gene,” I said, “and let’s get out of here.”
“No.”
Well, that was that. You can’t change his mind. I took a look at old Marvin. As I said before, Marvin was big. But what was worse was that he had this real determined look people who aren’t too bright get when they finally dib on to the fact they’ve been hosed and somebody has been laughing up his sleeve at them. They don’t like it too hot, believe me.
“Step outside, shit-head,” said Marvin.
“Fight,” somebody said encouragingly. A real clump of ring-siders was starting to gather. “Fight.” Bert came hustling up, bumping his way through the kids with his bay window. “Outside, you guys. I don’t want nothing broke in here. Get out or I’ll call the cops.”
Believe me, was I tense. Real tense. I know Gene pretty well and I was sure that he had looked at old Marvin’s muscles trying to bust out everywhere. Any second I figured he was going to even the odds by pasting old Marv in the puss with his pool cue, or at least sucker-punching him.
But Gene is full of surprises. All of a sudden he turned peacemaker. He laid down his pool cue (which I didn’t figure was too wise) and said: “You want to fight over this?” He held up the four ball. “Over this? An honest mistake?”
“Sure I do,” said Marvin. “You’re fucking right I do, cheater.”
“Cheater, cheater,” said Duck Ass. I was looking him over real good because I figured if something started in there I’d get him to tangle with.
Gene shrugged and even kind of sighed, like the hero does in the movies when he has been forced into a corner and has to do something that is against his better nature. He tossed up the four ball once, looked at it, and then reached behind him and shoved it back into the pocket. “All right,” he said, slouching a little and jamming his hands into his jacket pockets. “Let’s go, sport.”
That started the stampede. “Fight! Fight!” The younger kids, the ones thirteen and fourteen, were really excited; the mob kind of swept Marvin and Gene out the door, across the street and into the OK Economy parking lot where most beefs get settled. There’s lots of dancing-room there. A nice big ring.
Marvin settled in real quick. He tugged the brim of his Massey-Ferguson special a couple of times, got his dukes up and started to hop around like he’d stepped right out of the pages of Ring magazine. He looked pretty stupid, especially when Gene just looked at him, and kept his hands rammed in his jacket pockets. Marvin kind of clomped from foot to foot for a bit and then he said: “Get ’em up.”
“You get first punch,” said Gene.
“What?” said Marv. He was so surprised his yap fell open.
“If I hit you first,” said Gene, “you’ll charge me with assault. I know your kind.”
Marvin stopped clomping. I suspect it took too much coordination for him to clomp and think at the same time. “Oh no,” he said, “I ain’t falling for that. If I hit you first, you’ll charge me with assault.” No flies on Marvin. “You get the first punch.”
“Fight
. Come on, fight,” said some ass-hole, real disgusted with all the talk and no action.
“Oh no,” said Gene. “I ain’t hitting you first.”
Marvin brought his hands down. “Come on, come on, let fly.”
“You’re sure?” asked Gene.
“Give her your best shot,” said Marvin. “You couldn’t hurt a fly, you scrawny shit. Quit stalling. Get this show on the road.”
Gene uncorked on him. It looked like a real pansy punch. His right arm whipped out of his jacket pocket, stiff at the elbow like a girl’s when she slaps. It didn’t look like it had nothing behind it, sort of like Gene had smacked him kind of contemptuous in the mouth with the flat of his hand. That’s how it looked. It sounded like he’d hit him in the mouth with a ball-peen hammer. Honest to God, you could hear the teeth crunch when they broke.
Big Marvin dropped on his knees like he’d been shot in the back of the neck. His hands flew up to his face and the blood just ran through his fingers and into his cuffs. It looked blue under the parking-lot lights. There was an awful lot of it.
“Get up, you dick licker,” said Gene.
Marvin pushed off his knees with a crazy kind of grunt that might have been a sob. I couldn’t tell. He came up under Gene’s arms, swept him off his feet and dangled him in the air, crushing his ribs in a bear hug.
“Waauugh!” said Gene. I started looking around right smartly for something to hit the galoot with before he popped my brother like a pimple.
But then Gene lifted his fist high above Marvin’s head and brought it down on his skull, hard as he could. It made a sound like he was banging coconuts together. Marvin sagged a little at the knees and staggered. Chunk! Chunk! Gene hit him two more times and Marvin toppled over backwards. My brother landed on top of him and right away started pasting him left and right. Everybody was screaming encouragement. There was no invitation to the dick licker to get up this time. Gene was still clobbering him when I saw the cherry popping on the cop car two blocks away. I dragged him off Marvin.
“Cops,” I said, yanking at his sleeve. Gene was trying to get one last kick at Marvin. “Come on, fucker,” he was yelling. “Fight now!”
“Jesus,” I said, looking at Gene’s jacket and shirt, “you stupid bugger, you’re all over blood.” It was smeared all over him. Marvin tried to get up. He only made it to his hands and knees. There he stayed, drooling blood and saliva on the asphalt. The crowd started to edge away as the cop car bounced up over the curb and gave a long, low whine out of its siren.
I took off my windbreaker and gave it to Gene. He pulled off his jacket and threw it down. “Get the fuck out of here,” I said. “Beat it.”
“I took the wheels off his little red wagon,” said Gene. “It don’t pull so good now.” His hands were shaking and so was his voice. He hadn’t had half enough yet. “I remember that other guy,” he said. “Where’s his friend?”
I gave him a shove. “Get going.” Gene slid into the crowd that was slipping quickly away. Then I remembered his hockey jacket. It was wet with blood. It also had flashes with his name and number on it. It wouldn’t take no Sherlock Holmes cop to figure out who’d beat on Marvin. I picked it up and hugged it to my belly. Right away I felt something hard in the pocket. Hard and round. I started to walk away. I heard a car door slam. I knew what was in that pocket. The controversial four ball old Gene had palmed when he pretended to put it back. He likes to win.
I must have been walking too fast or with a guilty hunch to my shoulders, because I heard the cop call, “Hey you, the kid with the hair.” Me, I’m kind of a hippy for this place, I guess. Lots of people mention my hair.
I ran. I scooted round the corner of the supermarket and let that pool ball fly as hard as I could, way down the alley. I never rifled a shot like that in my life. If coach Al had seen me trigger that baby he’d have strapped me into a belly pad himself. Of course, a jacket don’t fly for shit. The bull came storming around the corner just as I give it the heave-ho. I was kind of caught with shit on my face, if you know what I mean?
Now a guy with half a brain could have talked his way out of that without too much trouble. Even a cop understands how somebody would try to help his brother. They don’t hold it too much against you. And I couldn’t really protect Gene. That geek Marvin would have flapped his trap if I hadn’t. And it wasn’t as if I hadn’t done old Gene some good. After all, they never found out about that pool ball. The judge would have pinned Gene’s ears back for him if he’d known he was going around thwacking people with a hunk of shatter-proof plastic. So Gene came out smelling like a rose, same suspended sentence as me, and a reputation for having hands of stone.
But at a time like that you get the nuttiest ideas ever. I watched them load Marvin in a squad car to drive him to the hospital while I sat in the back seat of another. And I thought to myself: I’ll play along with this. Let the old man come down to the cop shop over me for once. Me he takes for granted. Let him worry about Billy for a change. It wouldn’t hurt him.
So I never said one word about not being the guy who hopped Marvin. It was kind of fun in a crazy way, making like a hard case. At the station I was real rude and lippy. Particularly to a sergeant who was a grade A dink if I ever saw one. It was only when they took my shoe-laces and belt that I started to get nervous.
“Ain’t you going to call my old man?” I asked.
The ass-hole sergeant gave me a real smile. “In the morning,” he said. “All in good time.”
“In the morning?” And then I said like a dope: “Where am I going to sleep?”
“Show young Mr. Simpson where he’s going to sleep,” said the sergeant. He smiled again. It looked like a ripple on a slop pail. The constable who he was ordering around like he was his own personal slave took me down into the basement of the station. Down there it smelled of stale piss and old puke. I kind of gagged. I got a weak stomach.
Boy, was I nervous. I saw where he was taking me. There were four cells. They weren’t even made out of bars. Just metal strips riveted into a cross hatch you couldn’t stick your hand through. They were all empty.
“Your choice,” said the corporal. He was real humorous too, like his boss.
“You don’t have to put me in one of them, sir,” I said. “I won’t run away.”
“That’s what all the criminals say.” He opened the door. “Entrez-vous.”
I was getting my old crazy feeling really bad. Really bad. I felt kind of dizzy. “I got this thing,” I said, “about being locked up. It’s torture.”
“Get in.”
“No – please,” I said. “I’ll sit upstairs. I won’t bother anybody.”
“You think you’ve got a choice? You don’t have a choice. Move your ass.”
I was getting ready to cry. I could feel it. I was going to bawl in front of a cop. “I didn’t do it,” I said. “I never beat him up. Swear to Jesus I didn’t.”
“I’m counting three,” he said, “and then I’m applying the boots to your backside.”
It all came out. Just like that. “It was my fucking ass-hole brother Gene!” I screamed. The only thing I could think of was, if they put me in there I’ll be off my head by morning. I really will. “I didn’t do nothing! I never do nothing! You can’t put me in there for him!”
They called my old man. I guess I gave a real convincing performance. Not that I’m proud of it. I actually got sick on the spot from nerves. I just couldn’t hold it down.
Pop had to sign for me and promise to bring Gene down in the morning. It was about twelve-thirty when everything got cleared up. He’d missed his shift and his ride in the cage.
When we got in the car he didn’t start it. We just sat there with the windows rolled down. It was a beautiful night and there were lots of stars swimming in the sky. This town is small enough that street-lights and neon don’t interfere with the stars. It’s the only thing I like about this place. There’s plenty of sky and lots of air to breathe.
“Your broth
er wasn’t enough,” he said. “You I trusted.”
“I only tried to help him.”
“You goddamn snitch.” He needed somebody to take it out on, so he belted me. Right on the snout with the back of his hand. It started to bleed. I didn’t try to stop it. I just let it drip on those goddamn furry seat-covers that he thinks are the cat’s ass. “They were going to put me in this place, this cage, for him, for that useless shit!” I yelled. I’d started to cry. “No more, Pop. He failed! He failed on top of it all! So is he going to work? You got the boots ready on the back step? Huh? Is he going down in the fucking cage?”
“Neither one of you is going down in the cage. Not him, not you,” he said.
“Nah, I didn’t think so,” I said, finally wiping at my face with the back of my hand. “I didn’t think so.”
“I don’t have to answer to you,” he said. “You just can’t get inside his head. You were always the smart one. I didn’t have to worry about you. You always knew what to do. But Gene…” He pressed his forehead against the steering-wheel, hard. “Billy, I see him doing all sorts of stuff. Stuff you can’t imagine. I see it until it makes me sick.” He looked at me. His face was yellow under the street-light, yellow like a lemon. “I try so hard with him. But he’s got no sense. He just does things. He could have killed that other boy. He wouldn’t even think of that, you know.” All of a sudden the old man’s face got all crumpled and creased like paper when you ball it up. “What’s going to happen to him?” he said, louder than he had to. “What’s going to happen to Eugene?” It was sad. It really was.
I can never stay mad at my old man. Maybe because we’re so much alike, even though he can’t see it for looking the other way. Our minds work alike. I’m a chip off the old block. Don’t ever doubt it.
“Nothing.”
“Billy,” he said, “you mean it?”
I knew what he was thinking. “Yes,” I said. “I’ll do my best.”
Going to Russia
“ANOTHER of your letters arrived at my house yesterday,” the doctor announces. “That makes four now.” He says this in a colourless, insipid voice, in the way he says most things.
Man Descending Page 13