“Got any friends, Eddie?” Floyd was saying.
“I’ve got loads of friends,” said Mr. Edwards. “You’d like my friends, Floyd.”
Jeff remembered that almost an hour ago Mr. Edwards had become Eddie. It was only shortly after that that Eddie began to call the others by their first names. The radio had been blasting away for a long time. But Eddie couldn’t stand all the commercials, so he shut off the radio and for the last two hours the phonograph had been grinding. The complete score from the stage hit, “Oklahoma,” had been played. Eddie had also brought forth a favorite of his, Hildegarde singing “Leave Us Face It.” Floyd couldn’t see what was so good about Hildegarde’s singing. He thought her English was bad. The first trouble had started when Eddie played a recording by a well-known Negro singer.
Floyd didn’t care too much for the song but thought the voice was fair. Monty remembered the name.
“There’s a nigger thinks he’s hot,” Monty said.
“But he has such a talent,” Eddie said.
“I saw him in a play in New York,” said Monty.
“Yes,” said Eddie, excited. “He was really marvelous.”
“That bastid,” Monty said without particular venom, and therefore with more venom. “Holding that white girl in his arms, kissing her, making love to her.”
“You’re kiddin’,” Floyd said.
“Kidding like hell,” Monty smiled. “I saw it.”
“Why, the dirty black sonofabitch. I better not see it. I don’t know what I wouldn’t do if I see a thing like that.”
Floyd went to the phonograph and snatched the record from the machine. He broke it across his knee.
“Dirty nigger,” he spat out. “Yes, and that woman in the White House. It’s all her fault. Don’t get me wrong, Eddie. I’m a good Democrat but that woman drives me crazy. She got them niggers in the service. Never was in before. Always a white man’s service. Now she got them niggers in. And next thing you know there’s niggers kissin’ and makin’ love to white gals out in front of everybody. That shows you, now, don’t it? Don’t it, now? Goddam, if it don’t.”
“You’re just a lot of hot air,” Monty goaded him.
“I’ll show you hot air,” Floyd screamed.
“Don’t yell at me, you cracker. What’re you going to do about the niggers? Nothing. Just shoot off your big mouth.”
“There’s plenty can be done,” Floyd said quietly. He kept nodding his head knowingly. “Plenty. Yes sir. Plenty. Wait’n see.”
“What? Tell me what?” Monty said, enjoying the anger and hurt and sadism in Floyd.
“Well, the war’ll be over, won’t it? An’ we’ll be a-comin’ home. An’ we’ll be a-comin’ home with our rifles and things. An’ we’ll put the nigger in his place for good. You watch. First nigger looks cross-eyed at anybody, we string the bastard up. We know how to handle ’em. An’ when we’re through down home we’ll come up here and show the rest of you how to handle ’em. I hate niggers more’n I hate anythin’ else in the whole worl’. I kill every one of ’em,” he ended drunkenly.
“You’re just hot air,” Monty insisted. “You ever kill one?”
“Sure.”
“Liar.”
“Goddam it, I say I kill one. Yes sir, Maybe more.”
“Where?”
“On the train.”
“How?”
“He was sittin’ in a seat, the dirty black bastard. I tol’ him to get up. He said he don’t hafta get up on account he’s a soldier. I tol’ him to get up. He said he don’t wanna get up. He was wearin’ a coupla overseas ribbons. Big shot. Had the Purple Heart. Sittin’ there like God A’mighty Hisself. I tol’ him to get the hell outta that seat ’fore I cut his heart out. People in the train beginnin’ to laugh. He don’t get up. He says I’m drunk an’ to go ’way an’ sit down someplace else. There’s plenty room, he tells me. So I jumped on him an’ stabbed him. Cut him up. Yes sir. Killed the black bastard dead.”
“Didn’t they arrest you?” Monty wanted to know.
“Not for killin’ a nigger. Not where I’m from. Everybody in the train saw he committed suicide.”
Eddie became worried by that tale. He got a bit sick. Monty fed Floyd a lot more liquor and quieted him down. After that the party went along rather nicely. Not too much noise and very little breakage.
Jeff couldn’t see what was going on very well. The entire room was beginning to look hazy and unreal. It was like a somewhat faded pencil sketch. The lines blended too well.
Monty asked Eddie for a dance. At first Eddie laughed it off, but then he accepted. Monty held Eddie too tightly. He made obscene motions with his body and made Eddie giggle. After that Floyd asked Eddie to dance, and he was cruder. Finally Eddie noticed that the liquor was running low, so he closed the phonograph sadly and said the party was about over. The boys would have to run along. He had an appointment in half an hour.
“Je-suss,” said Floyd. “Jus’ when the party’s gettin’ good.”
“I’d love to take you all along with me,” Eddie said, “but I really can’t.”
“That’s all right,” Monty said. He winked at Floyd. Jeff couldn’t be sure whether or not he was included in the wink. He was too far away, sitting on the couch.
“I’m not gonna go.” Floyd planted himself in the center of the room with his legs apart. A moment later he took off his pants and defied anyone to put him out. Eddie began to cry. Jeff didn’t like to see Eddie cry. He liked Eddie. He thought Eddie was a swell guy. Eddie sat down on the floor and cried. Monty tried to comfort him.
“Don’t cry,” Monty said.
“I have such a bitchy life,” said Eddie. “I don’t think anybody in the world loves me.”
Jeff was sorry for Eddie. Through the fumes in his mind he thought he knew now why Eddie was hungry and for what.
“No one ever does what I want them to,” Eddie wept. “Sometimes I’m so lonely I could simply die.”
“We won’t let you be lonely, will we Floyd?”
“No sir. Not for a minute. Je-suss, no.”
“Really, boys, you’ve got to go. Really you must. I have to shave and dress.” He stopped crying and got up off the floor.
Jeff rose.
“I must leave now,” he said stiffly. He thought he sounded like a butler in a play.
He shook hands with Eddie.
Eddie said: “Please come and visit with me again sometime. Won’t you?”
“Sure,” said Jeff. “Sure.”
He turned and put down the empty glass he had been holding for some time. He walked to the door and out into the hallway of the apartment house. Then he realized that Floyd and Monty were not with him. He was glad. And then he was worried. And then he was sad. And then he didn’t care.
On the pavement he asked a passer-by what time it was. The man said it was six-thirty.
Six-thirty. What would that be in military time? He had to stop and figure it out. 1830. At least he thought that was right. Now, what did he have to do? There was someplace he had to go. He couldn’t remember where it was. He started to walk and he didn’t know in which direction he was going. He had to walk slowly. Actually he didn’t know how slowly he was walking. Faces seemed to loom up out of the dusk at him. He smiled at the faces but they didn’t smile back.
“Scuse me,” he said to a form and face, “could you please tell me what street this is?”
“Twelfth Street, soldier,” said the face.
“I see,” Jeff said, not seeing.
“Where do you want to go?” the voice asked.
“Oh, there’s a place I’ve got to go all right. I’m like a train. I’ve got someplace to go, all right.”
“That’s good.”
“Where you say this street goes?”
“At the end of the block, that’s Pennsylvania Avenue. You can’t miss it. There’s a bar on the corner. If you turn right.…”
“Bar. That’s where I have to go,” said Jeff, discovering his
destination. “Good night.”
He left the face and walked on, stepping carefully over the cracks in the pavement so that it wouldn’t rain.
CHAPTER X
The first bar didn’t work out. It was the kind of bar where people went only to drink. Jeff was looking for something else. The sound of laughing. Good conversation. Bright faces. The people in the first bar seemed to be preoccupied with what was in their glasses. He left the place quickly and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue until he came to a hotel.
There he found another bar. A better bar. A nicer bar. With nicer people. People who laughed. Who made good conversation. Whose faces were bright. There weren’t many women at the hotel bar. Most of the customers were men. They were the kind one looked at and called businessmen. They wore good suits of soft material and their teeth were either filled with gold so that you couldn’t see the gold unless the man laughed from the belly, or else the teeth were filled with excellent porcelain workmanship. A good many of them had mustaches. Most of them had loose jowls. All of them had manicured fingernails. And they all seemed to be enjoying themselves even though they were hating Washington and their wives and their apartments and, of course, President Roosevelt.
The leather chairs were comfortable, the booths cozy, the drinks expensive. Jeff bought a package of cigarettes. He chose an empty table and sat down. He lit a cigarette. Later on a waiter happened to come by. Jeff ordered a Scotch Collins. A few feet away at another table sat two men. They were drinking dry martinis and talking loudly.
One of the men was heavy in the chest and heavier in the belly. He sat with his legs crossed and Jeff noticed that his legs were too thin for the body. The man wore a dark brown, double-breasted suit, the coat of which hung open. In his left lapel was a small pin with four tiny blue stars on it. The other man was a good audience. He laughed at everything the first man said. When Jeff was half finished with his drink, the man with the thin legs saw Jeff and waved familiarly.
“Hello there, soldier,” he said.
Jeff nodded and smiled. In his jumbled thoughts he imagined the man to be a Senator or a Congressman or at least a governor. Washington was supposed to be full of them.
“Come over and join us in a drink,” said the second man.
Again Jeff nodded. He rose and went to their table, taking his half-empty glass with him.
“My name’s Ferguson,” said the man who had asked him over. “This is Georgie Wallace. No relation to Henry Wallace, eh, Georgie?” He slapped Georgie on the back.
“You said it, Hank,” laughed Georgie.
“How’s the war?” asked Hank Ferguson. “Are they treating you right? Eh? Treating you right? ’Course they’re treating you right. The armed services treat everybody right.”
“Have a drink, Corporal? What’ll you drink?” urged Georgie.
“Oh, waiter, waiter,” yelled Hank. In the distance a waiter shook his head to himself and then nodded that he would be right over. “I’ll bet these bars sure will be glad when the war’s over, eh, Georgie? Eh? They’ll can every one of these hired help. Not worth a nickel. Not a plugged nickel, eh, Georgie?”
“That’s right. Wouldn’t own a bar these days. Can’t trust the help. Why, you should see what it’s come down to back home at the club, Hank. You wouldn’t believe it. You just wouldn’t believe it.”
“Oh, yes I would, Georgie. Yes I would. That’s the evil of bureaucracy. Yes sir, Georgie, you mark my words. That man’s a maniac. He’ll wreck this country yet.”
“Serves you right for voting for him in ’32. Remember I told you he was a Rooshky?”
“Well, you were wrong on Willkie, weren’t you? Eh? Eh, Georgie?”
Georgie laughed very loudly and Jeff saw that he had several gold fillings. He hadn’t noticed them before. The waiter came to the table and wiped it with a wet rag. Then he picked up the empty martini glasses and stood there.
“Well,” said Hank, glancing up at the waiter sideways. “Glad to see we’re not forgotten.”
“Yes sir,” said the waiter.
“What’ll it be, soldier?” asked Hank.
“Same thing, please.”
“Same all around,” ordered Hank.
The waiter nodded and left.
“How many Japs you killed, son?” asked Georgie.
In a self-willed alcoholic illusion, Jeff imagined that he had killed many Japs. They had died under his hand by hand grenade and rifle and mortar and machine gun. All kinds of Japs had died at his hands.
“Oh …” mumbled Jeff, “I don’t know.”
“Don’t like to talk about it, eh, boy? Sure. I know just how you feel. Can’t you see the boy don’t like to talk about things like that, Georgie? He wants to forget all about it, eh? Eh? Sure. Know just how it is. Feel the same doggone way about it myself. Why, in the last war I killed nine Huns. Yes sir. Nine of ’em. But I don’t like to talk about it. None of us likes to talk about things like that. Georgie, here, don’t realize that.”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know,” said Georgie, hurt. “For all the taxes a man pays these days he’s got a right to know how many Japs were killed.”
“I got four boys in the service myself,” said Hank. “See that?” He held his lapel out for Jeff to see. “Four boys. All in the service. Each and every one of them fighting for good old Uncle Sam. Yes sir.”
“Look out,” said Georgie, “he’ll show you their pictures in a minute.”
“And what’s wrong with that, I’d like to know. Eh?” Hank’s face had suddenly gone stiff.
“Not a thing, Hank, old sock, not a thing. Perfectly natural thing to do. Let’s see the pictures, Hank. Take ’em out, old sock. Come on now, don’t be bashful. That’s a boy. Just take a look at those four sons, soldier. Just take a peek at those Americans. Each and every one a real American. Why, I was there when each and every one of those boys was born. Wasn’t I, Hank? Wasn’t I, old sock?”
“Sure was,” said Hank, laughing, his good humor fully restored. “Never forget how you helped me wear a hole in the hospital carpet. Yes sir. Funniest thing you ever saw.”
The waiter came and set down the drinks. Jeff handed back the picture and said: “They sure look swell, Mr. Ferguson. Swell.”
“Just doing their part, that’s all,” said Hank. “Same’s everybody else.” But from the way he said it you knew he meant that scarcely anyone else was doing his part, and that only the Ferguson family deserved the credit for fighting the war, and that of all the Fergusons, he, Hank Ferguson, deserved most of it. Also, that he intended to get it. “Why only this morning, I said to myself, ‘Hank Ferguson, did you buy your war bond this week?’ ’Course I knew doggone well I hadn’t. But did I put up a lot of arguments like some of these people? No sir. I went right out and planked down $18.75 and bought myself a bond. Yes sir. Nobody in this good old U.S.A. can say Hank Ferguson don’t know there’s a war going on. Eh? Eh, Georgie?”
“That’s right,” said Georgie. “Absolutely right. When you boys come home this time you’ll find a lot of us have done our part, all right. And what’s more, we’ll let you know those as hasn’t done their part. Right, Hank?”
“You said it, Georgie. Tell him about your plan, Georgie. The plan about jobs after the war.”
“Well, my boy, it’s this way,” began Georgie. He leaned back in his chair and put on the look that a businessman wears when he is about to lay down the law to a junior executive. There was something paternal in it, something of assumed casualness, yet the principal ingredient of the look was omniscience. “I’m secretary-treasurer of the Business Men’s Association back home, and so naturally I’ve got to think about things like this. I don’t deserve any special kinda credit see? Not at all. It’s just part of my job. Just like killing Japs is yours. Well, now, one day I read in the Courier—that’s a paper out our way, expect you heard of it—anyway, I read in the Courier about how the boys would be coming home purty soon. ‘Well, now, George Wallace,’ I said to me. ‘There y
ou are.’ I knew right off exactly what my duty was. I went to the luncheon of the Business Men’s Association and told them ‘Well, now,’ I said to them—You know who was there that day, too, Hank? It was Charley Rhinelander. He’s the president of the Business Men’s Association, and he’s a regular old coot of a conservative. Not that I don’t like conservatives. But there’s a certain amount you have to give these days.… Anyways, I said to them, Charley Rhinelander included, I said: ‘Maybe you don’t know it, but the boys are coming home soon.’ Well, now, you coulda heard a pin drop. It was plain as the nose on your face, but they never even thought about it. Not that they wouldn’t wanta think about it, mind you. Just that they never did, that’s all. Anyways, they just sat there and wondered what was coming next. I said: ‘The boys’ll be coming home soon, and what are we going to do about it? Are we going to let them think we don’t want them any more just because the war’s over, specially after they went and died and fought for us?’ Well, Hank, I don’t know if I told you, but Charley Rhinelander practically bit right through his old stogie. ’Course they cheered and applauded and such, but I told them, I told them right off, this wasn’t no personal matter. That it was just part of my job to think of such things. Charley Rhinelander, he got right up and his big face was all red. ‘What you expect us to do about them coming home?’ he said. Well, now, Hank, you know Charley Rhinelander. He can make things kind of tough for you if you set yourself up against him. But I wasn’t going to be bullied around by him on something vital like this. I said I didn’t know exactly what ought to be done about the boys coming home, but that something had to be done because they had a right to expect it. Well, then old man Kelly got up. You know old man Kelly. The one who’s got that tin roofing place. Well, Hank, you remember he had a kid called Mickey? Big kid with a crew haircut all the time? Well, Mickey went and joined the Marine Corps and got himself killed in the Philippines or someplace. Anyway, old man Kelly he stood up and said he knew what we had to do for the boys, and that was to get them jobs. Real jobs for real money. And we also had to be patient with them at first. Then it came to me, Hank. Just a regular old bolt from the blue. I suddenly knew the answer to the whole thing. I said to them, I said, ‘Fellow Americans, there is only one answer to the whole thing. We all know how these here unions and their crooked stooges are going to try to take over all the businesses and factories when the war’s over. And who is there better to protect American property than the very boys who’re fighting for it?’ Well, now, Hank, you shoulda heard the clapping then. Even Charley Rhinelander, he clapped at that. And then the whole plan got clearer by the second. Never felt so darn good in all my life. Regular speech-maker that day. I told them the whole idea. How when the boys come home we’ll just make them special guards for all the plants and factories and businesses and stop these unions and Rooshky boys from taking over. How we could even set up barracks and tents and things for them to live in. And we could pay them a real handsome salary. Say, what they were getting in the service, plus ten per cent. Old man Kelly didn’t like that. He said something about the police force being able to take care of private property without a bunch of storm troopers doing it. Well, now, you shoulda heard Charley Rhinelander then. He stood up straight as a poplar tree. I got to admit it, Hank, that Charley Rhinelander can certainly give a man a scare. He stood up there with his red face redder than anything. He said to Kelly: ‘Sir, you mean to imply that those boys, those Americans who are giving their life’s blood for their country, are storm troopers? Do you mean, sir, that my nephew, who is with the U.S. Army Public Relations, is a storm trooper? Well, if you do, then I demand your resignation from this American institution of the Middleburg Business Men’s Association.’ Well, now, you coulda heard a pin drop. And old man Kelly, he stood up and said as far as he was concerned Charley Rhinelander himself was a storm trooper. And how he would be glad to resign. And he walked out. Well, nobody thought much of what he said on account of how everybody knows how those shanty Irish are. So I got up and voted a round of applause for old Charley Rhinelander. Then we formed a committee to draw up plans on this idea of putting the boys to work again when they come home. I was made the chairman of the committee, and here I am in Washington to talk to the Congressman about presenting the idea as a bill in Congress. Well, what do you think now, my boy? How do you feel, now you know you’re not a forgotten man?”
The Brick Foxhole Page 11