The Professional

by W. c. Heinz

  “Was the driving bad in the rain?” I said to the two of them.

  “It wasn’t any fun,” Herb said.

  He’s got to be a supply clerk, I was thinking, or I can’t make people any more.

  “You want a drink, Frank?” Eddie said.

  “I’ll get it,” I said. “Helen?”

  “Well, I suppose so.”

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Scotch, and soda.”

  “You, sir?”

  “No, thanks,” Herb said.

  Girot poured some McNaughton’s over some ice for me and mixed Helen’s drink and I brought them back. Through the window behind Herb I could see that it was still raining hard.

  “My God,” Eddie said, “can’t you make him stop?”

  The kid was still running up and down as hard as he could go, and now he was stamping his feet, with each step, on the bare wooden floor.

  “What can I do?” Helen said.

  “Hey, Slugger!” Eddie said, calling the kid.

  The kid, running, heard him but paid no attention. On the next trip past us, though, he ran close to our table and, as he was about to duck out again, Eddie reached out and caught him about the waist.

  “C’mon,” he said, pulling the kid to him with the kid squirming to get loose. “I want you to meet Mr. Hughes.”

  “Hello,” I said.

  “I wanna run,” the kid said.

  “How about us having a party?” Eddie said. “We’ll have a party right here, and you can have ice cream. How would you like some ice cream?”

  The kid was short and wiry, with short brown hair, and he had brown eyes like his mother. He had on new red shoes and a gray flannel suit, short pants and a short lapel-less jacket and I realized that he and his mother were dressed as a pair. She had on a gray flannel suit and a red blouse and there was a red ribbon holding the pony tail at the back of her head.

  “I don’t want ice cream,” he said, wrestling to get away from Eddie.

  “C’mon, I’ll get you some ice cream.”

  “All right,” the kid said and, taking him by the hand, Eddie led him out to the kitchen.

  “Can you remember, Helen, when you first met Eddie?” I said after a while.

  “When I first met him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who knows?” she said.

  “We all lived on the same block,” Herb said.

  “I know that.”

  “She always knew him. They were kids.”

  “What’s the first thing you can recall about Eddie? I mean, going back in your mind, what do you remember about him? Maybe it’s something he said to you, or you said to him, or that you saw him do.”

  “All the kids were together,” Herb said. “She wouldn’t remember things like that.”

  Big brother has got to be a supply clerk, I was thinking, when Eddie came back, still holding the kid’s hand and, with his left hand, carrying the dish of ice cream and a spoon.

  “Now,” he said, putting the dish on the table and pulling another chair up for the kid. “This’ll taste good.”

  “I was asking Helen,” I said to Eddie, when he sat down, “what she first remembers about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, when she and you first became aware of each other.”

  “I can tell you when I first paid any attention to her,” he said, smiling and looking at her.

  The kid was kicking one of the legs of the table, and Eddie became aware of it just as I did.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Eat some more of your ice cream.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “What’s wrong with it? You like ice cream.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Since when doesn’t he like ice cream?” Eddie said to Helen.

  “I don’t know.”

  “All right, but just don’t kick the table.”

  “You were saying,” I said, “that you remember when you first noticed Helen.”

  “That’s right,” Eddie said. “We were playing stickball. You know? Somebody—I don’t remember who, but probably Tony—hit one real good, and up the street there was this car parked.”

  The kid was kicking the table again.

  “Look, Slugger,” Eddie said to him. “You want me to flatten you?”

  “Don’t talk to him like that,” Helen said.

  “All right. Then you tell him to stop. He shouldn’t be kicking the table.”

  “Then guess,” the kid said.

  “Guess? Guess what?”

  “Billy’s cousin’s name.”

  “Who?”

  “Billy’s cousin’s name.”

  “What’s he talking about?”

  “Billy Murphy’s cousin,” Helen said. “He was playing with Billy Murphy the other day, and his cousin was there.”

  “Guess,” the kid said, kicking the table leg again.

  “All right, but just stop the kicking. Is it a girl or a boy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? You were playing with him, or her, or whatever Billy Murphy’s cousin is, weren’t you?”

  “It’s a girl,” Helen said. “He knows it’s a girl.”

  “It’s a girl?” Eddie said to the kid.

  “Guess her name,” the kid said.

  “Betty,” Eddie said.

  “Nope,” the kid said, drawing it out and smiling and shaking his head slowly.

  “Alice?”

  “Nope.”

  “Helen?”

  “Nope.”

  “I can’t even think of any girls’ names,” Eddie said to the rest of us.

  “Ruth,” Herb said.

  “Nope. Guess.”

  “Florence,” Eddie said.

  “Nope.”

  “Grace,” Herb said.

  “Nope.”

  “What’s the kid’s name?” Eddie said to Helen.

  “I don’t know. I never even saw her. He just came home and said he was playing with Billy Murphy’s cousin.”

  “Guess.”

  “And he didn’t say the name?”

  “I told you not.”

  “Guess,” the kid said, starting to kick the table leg again. “Guess.”

  “Oh,” Eddie said. “Frances.”

  “Nope. Guess.”

  “This is silly,” Eddie said. “We could guess all day. What were you asking me, Frank?”

  “You were telling me about the stickball game.”

  “Guess.”

  “That’s right. Somebody—probably Tony—hit one a mile up the street and it hit the back of this car that was parked there and—”

  “Guess.”

  “—and, where the back sloped up by the back window, it hit there and bounced up in the air, over the top of the car—”

  “Guess. Guess,” the kid was saying, keeping time with his shoe on the table leg now. “Guess. Guess.”

  “Oh, Alice.”

  “Nope.”

  “You guessed that before,” I said.

  “I don’t know any more.”

  “Guess.”

  “Why don’t you guess?” Eddie said to Helen.

  “I don’t know the name. I told you I don’t know.”

  “But I don’t know it, either. He’s the only one that knows.”

  “Guess. Guess,” the kid said, still kicking in time.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Jane?”

  “Nope,” the kid said, at least stopping the kicking.

  “Judy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Janet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Jean?”

  “Nope.”

  “How are we going to guess it?” Eddie said to the rest of us.

  “Take it alphabetically,” Herb said. “That’s the only way to do it.”

  “Guess.”

  “Even I’m getting interested now,” I said.

  “Guess.”

  “Abby,” Herb said.

 
; “Nope.”

  “Aachen,” I said.

  “What?” Herb said.

  “It’s a town in Germany.”

  “Guess.”

  “Barbara,” Eddie said.

  “Nope.”

  “It’s impossible,” Eddie said.

  “Nope.”

  “I like that one,” I said. “Impossible Murphy.”

  “Nope,” the kid said, looking at me.

  “Adele,” Herb said.

  “Nope.”

  “We’ve got to think of something else to get his mind off it,” Eddie said.

  “Guess.”

  “Well, if anybody knows the phone number,” I said, “I’ll gladly call Mrs. Murphy.”

  “Guess. Guess.”

  “Look,” Eddie said to him. “We’re not going to guess any more. Now the game’s over.”

  “Guess. Guess. Guess.”

  “We did. We can’t guess any more. You have to tell us.”

  “Nope.”

  “I’d like to know,” I said to the kid. “Won’t you tell me?”

  “Nope.”

  “Tell Mr. Hughes,” Eddie said. “Come on.”

  “Nope.”

  “Look!” Eddie said, raising his voice a little. “Tell him.”

  “Nope,” the kid said, and then he dropped his head and started to cry.

  “Now look what you did,” Helen said.

  “Look what I did?” Eddie said. “What did I do? He’s got us all going nuts here, trying to think of the name of a kid we don’t even know and now he starts to cry. I didn’t make him cry.”

  “I certainly didn’t,” Helen said.

  “Come on,” Eddie said, and he picked the kid up. The kid was still crying, sitting on Eddie’s lap, Eddie trying to rock him. “Just stop crying. What are you crying about?”

  “I don’t know,” the kid said, breathing it now, between the sobs that were shaking him. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? You don’t know what?”

  “I don’t know the name,” the kid was sobbing. “I don’t know the girl’s name. I don’t know the girl’s name.”

  “How do you like that?” Eddie said, looking at Helen. “He drives us all crazy trying to guess a name he doesn’t even know himself.”

  “That’s the way he is,” Helen said.

  “We don’t care what the name is,” Eddie said to the kid, rocking him, the kid still sobbing. “We don’t care. Who cares about that old name?”

  “You know you should never have started that guessing business with him,” Herb said.

  “You know you’re right?” I said to him, hoping my face was expressing awe. “You’re absolutely right.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  “Do you have any children of your own?”

  “You don’t have to have children. All you have to have is common sense.”

  “I know what we’ll do,” Eddie said, bending over and trying to look into the kid’s face. “I know what we’ll do. We’ll play the pinball machine. Do you want to play the pinball machine?”

  “I don’t know,” the kid said, crying.

  “Come on,” Eddie said.

  He stood up and bounced the kid up toward his shoulder and he carried him off toward the bar, the kid still sobbing.

  “It’s never easy,” I said to Helen. “I guess it’s not supposed to be.”

  “You’re telling me?”

  “If you just use common sense,” Herb said, “you won’t have any trouble.”

  “No trouble at all?” I said.

  “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “What was Eddie trying to tell me about the stickball game?” I said to Helen.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t remember that particular game with which, apparently, you had something to do?”

  “There were a million stickball games on the block,” Herb said.

  “I remember them playing stickball,” Helen said. “They used to play it half the summer.”

  “What’s so important about a stickball game?” Herb said.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard Eddie’s story yet.”

  “But what difference would it make? Eddie’s a fighter now. That’s what you’re writing about, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t understand how you writers work.”

  “So I judge,” I said, and then to Helen: “May I get you another drink?”

  “You might as well.”

  “And you?” I said to Herb.

  “No,” he said, and then, thinking: “Well, all right. Rye and ginger.”

  I brought the drinks back and sat down. Helen was lighting another cigarette, adept and behind that pane of clear glass I had seen at the house.

  “Do you enjoy watching fights?” I said to her.

  She inhaled from the cigarette, and then streamed the smoke out slowly. It is a device all those glaziers use.

  “To be honest, I can take them or leave them.”

  “Do you go to Eddie’s fights in New York?”

  “I have.”

  “How many have you seen?”

  “Oh, three or four.”

  “Are you planning to write about Helen?” Herb said.

  “Yes. To some extent.”

  “Why do you have to bring her into it?”

  “Because she’s Eddie’s wife.”

  “There’s a lot of fighters that aren’t even married.”

  “What was the first fight you ever saw Eddie in?” I said to Helen. “Was it before you were married?”

  “Yes. It was at that place at Fort Hamilton.”

  “What do you remember about it?”

  “Well, he fought a colored fighter.”

  “Toby Arnold,” Herb said. “Eddie knocked him out in the fourth round.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said to Helen. “How did you happen to go to the fight, and who did you go with? What kind of a night was it? You weren’t married to Eddie yet, and you may remember the dress you decided to wear. You’d never been to a fight before, so it was either the way you expected it to be, or it wasn’t. How was it?”

  “Well, I went with a girl friend. Eddie gave me two tickets.”

  “What’s the name of the girl friend?”

  “It was Alice Jenkins. Now she’s married.”

  “What kind of a night was it?”

  “It was in the summer. I don’t remember what kind of a night it was particularly.”

  “Is that important?” Herb said. “The kind of a night it was?”

  “It might be.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this was the start of Helen becoming a part of Eddie’s way of making a living, his career.”

  “But Eddie’s a fighter.”

  “What difference does that make? Eddie leaves home, has a pair of gloves laced onto his hands, and fights. Somebody else picks up a brief case and kisses his wife good-bye. They’re all in the same tournament. Each man rides out wearing the colors of his house. I’m merely trying to reconstruct the beginnings of the relationship that grew to involve Helen and now their child—just to give you two people—in Eddie’s fights.”

  “What magazine did you say this is for?”

  “I didn’t say.”

  “Well, what magazine is it for?”

  “The Tel Aviv Chuzpah.”

  “What?”

  “You’re afraid of this story, aren’t you?” I said to Helen.

  “Why do you say that?” she said.

  “Because I feel it. I’d have to be pretty dull not to.”

  “She’s got a right to be,” Herb said.

  “Why?”

  “The things they write about boxing,” Helen said.

  “All those movies they make,” Herb said. “Eddie was never in a fixed fight.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Not one fighter in a thousand ever is.”

  “Then why do they write those things?” He
len said.

  “To make a living.”

  “People don’t know what it’s like, married to a fighter.”

  “I’m sure of that.”

  “He’s away half the time. When he’s home he’s not like other men.”

  “Naturally, he’s a fighter.”

  “There’s a lot of things we don’t do. There’s a lot of places we don’t go.”

  “Believe me, Helen doesn’t have any easy time of it,” Herb said.

  “I never suspected that she did.”

  “Then the things they’re always writing about boxing,” Helen said. “At least if Eddie was in another business it would be respected.”

  “When he wins the title he’ll be respected. Millions of people will watch it on TV and, in spite of what they’ve heard about fighting, they’ll respect him.”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Sure, if he could win the title,” Herb said. “Then he could make something of his name, but the other guy’s some fighter. Don’t forget that.”

  I didn’t have to answer. Eddie was walking back to us, holding the kid by the hand.

  “Some pinball player,” he said when they got to us. “He’s a champ.”

  “I wanna play some more,” the kid said, pulling at Eddie’s hand.

  “I have to go in and work,” Eddie said. “I’ll take him in with me and he can watch everybody. He’ll like that.”

  “Nothing doing,” Helen said.

  “I wanna play some more.”

  “Why? What’s the matter? He’ll like it.”

  “Sure he’ll like it. Do you think I want him watching his father punching other people?”

  “Why not?”

  “What does he know about boxing? All he’ll see is his father punching other people. Then he’ll start doing it on the block.”

  “No he won’t.”

  “Listen I know him better than you do. I’m the one who’ll have to put up with him, and it’s bad enough as it is.”

  “I wanna play some more.”

  “Okay,” Eddie said, shrugging. “I’ll see you later.”

  “I wanna play some more.”

  “Your mother’ll play with you,” Eddie said, over his shoulder and walking out.

  “All right. All right,” Helen said. “I’ll play with you.”

  “Well, I’m glad to have seen you again,” I said to her.

  “Thank you.”

  “And you, too,” I said, nodding to Herb.

  “Wait. I’m going in to watch Eddie box.”