by Jack Cady
The walk to church amounted to three city blocks, but Howard left early. He strolled instead of drifting, and in a general way hoped Lucky would show up before church. Lucky was due back. Lucky would surely drop in to check his store. The two weeks of working for Mr. Wade had been just fine, but Howard (who had never met his father, so as he could remember) missed Lucky.
Fourteen-year-old boys are just emerging from that scampish stage of kidhood into the toils of puberty. They are, most likely, some of the most wide-awake people on earth, although not a little confused. They can walk right through an earthquake without paying much attention, but catch a fly ball by watching its shadow's descending arc. They see, and don't see. Theirs is a different awareness. Sometimes they see things they shouldn't, things no one should.
A few other folks were walking Jackson St. They pretty much kept to their business, with no reason to poke around or look down alleys. No one, until Howard, looked down the alley beside Lucky's store.
He first dawdled in front of the store, hands on the black steel bars protecting windows and doors. He thought it a burglar-proof store, and approved. In the dim inside of the store Thomas, the Plymouth Rock, and Lola, the guinea hen, roosted. Old Thomas looked like he was about to lose patience with Lucky. Old Thomas looked absolutely nuts this Sunday morning.
Howard peered down Jackson St. like he willed Lucky's money-green Cad to turn the corner and cruise toward him. No cars moved on Jackson St. Up the way, next block, the auction truck stood outside Lester's place.
Howard stepped toward church, then bethought himself to check the back of Lucky's store. There was an iron-covered door back there set in a steel frame. Still, it didn't hurt to check.
He saw the shoe before he was halfway alongside the store. Empty garbage cans hid everything except the shoe. The shoe pointed toe-down and slanted. It glowed patent-leather black in sunshine. Howard paused. Thinking about it.
Maybe the man was sick. Maybe he was just drunk and sleeping. Because, there had to be a man attached. A shoe didn't stand that way, not all by itself. Maybe, Howard thought, he'd better go find Lester, or somebody.
On the other hand, if the man was sleeping one off, it wouldn't do to pester people. Howard stepped forward, real slow, and a little scary. When he got closer he saw blood that wasn't even red anymore, but black. A lot of blood.
He knew the man could not be alive even as he told himself he had to look. He thought of Jim. If Jim could handle a dead man, Howard could handle a dead man. If the man was really, truly dead.
Flies buzzed in the sunlight. It would be flies that Howard would not forget, ever. Flies perched on the tips of Jolly's ears as Jolly lay face down. Flies buzzed all around his head, and around the blood. Jolly's white suit was purple-black with blood, and flies sat in a cut along his neck. His hands were stretched out like he tried to pull himself up, and his hands were cut and covered with flies.
Howard backed away. He did not scream, and he did not turn his back. He stepped real quiet backward down the alley, and he kept his hand to the wall of the store. The store seemed like the only safe place in the world, but Howard did not understand why. He brushed his jacket sleeve along the wall and thought it would get dirty and his mother would have words. When he got close to the mouth of the alley he turned and ran. He stood before Lucky's store, ready to move, trying to decide which way to go and to whom. He looked down Jackson St. and, like the answer to a prayer, saw a money-green Cadillac.
* * *
During the war death had walked the world: guns and gas chambers, ordnance, disease and starvation. And, before the war, The Great Depression made death dreadful because many, many folks went hungry to their graves; nor could the living afford doctors. And death was dirt common in days when t.b. and cholera, scarlet fever and infantile paralysis swept neighborhoods like punishing hands.
People thought differently about death, because it was expected. At the same time, sorrow wasn't different. The tearing, ripping, anguish caused by a loved person's passing dwelt in human hearts; and some folks prayed, and some cursed God.
What was different in Louisville, was closeness. People knew each other because neighborhoods were tightly woven. People owned faces as well as names. A man might be a bum, a drunk, a ne'r-do-well, but he belonged. People might not even like him, but he had his place. When he died the neighborhood knew that, somehow, it was less.
News of Jolly's murder got known on Jackson St. within ten minutes of Lucky's arrival. Preaching and singing shortly started at church, song calling Jolly to Glory, or maybe all of Jackson St. to Glory.
In front of Lucky's store the hot street seemed empty though lots of people were around. Some were down the alley looking at the corpse, and thinking.
"When you last see him?"
"He went on the town. Maybe ten, ten-thirty."
"How the hell he get here?"
"Goddamn man, who is to know? A bad man walked him this-a-way."
"I ain't sayin' who."
"Nor me. Some New York shit from one of the clubs."
"Might could be. Might could be."
There wasn't a soul on Jackson St. who didn't know that Ozzie killed Jolly. Except, maybe, Lucky who had been away. When the cops arrived there wasn't a soul seen on Jackson St., which ran empty as a dry stream.
What was needed was colored cops but these were white. One cop was red-faced and with a beefy-butt. Old school. Head breaker. Always on the take. The other was a newer kind of cop. He was no sweetheart, but he had some judgment, having done Army time in the Pacific.
When the cops entered Lucky's store they saw Lucky sitting beside Howard, and Howard cried. His shirt front ran wet from sweat and tears. His hands trembled. He stayed close to Lucky. Howard had one shoe kicked off. The shoe showed a spatter of blood. Howard looked at it, then wept through tightly closed eyes. Lucky watched the street and waited for Miz Esther.
"Peter," Lucky said to the experienced cop, "The problem's around back." He leaned toward Howard, protective.
"Who?" The beefy-butt cop pointed at Howard.
"He found the body," Lucky said.
"Let's take a look," the experienced cop said. He turned to the door.
"One more dead nigger," the beefy-butt said. "Hot damn for Saturday night." As the cops stepped through the doorway Miz Esther rushed in. She stepped past the cops like the cops were not there.
"I was headed for church," she told Lucky. "Give me my baby." Lucky stood, gave her his chair. "I'll try to head them off." He left the store to walk down the alley.
The two cops stood looking at the corpse. "You know him?" the experienced cop asked Lucky.
"He's called Jolly," Lucky said. "I've got a card on him in my file. His real name is Williams."
"Ordinary robbery," the experienced cop said. "Not a dime on him." He looked straight at Lucky. "You got any idea?"
"I've been away," Lucky told him. "Two weeks."
"Talk to the smoke."
"He's just a boy," Lucky said. "He can't tell anything."
"You're too damn nice to these people," the beefy-butt said. "They'll turn on you one day." The cop sounded positive, and he stayed positive right up to the time when he banged heads with Miz Esther.
"He can't say anything," she told the cops. "Can't you see."
"He's got a mouth," the beefy-butt said. "Let him damn well use it."
At which point Miz Esther stood (and she stood anyway five-ten, or maybe five-eleven). At any rate, she looked somewhat down on the cop. Her blue and white church dress set off a face a little darker than Howard's, a face with Indian brow and framed with Indian hair. Her lips were almost thin, and even the most bigoted bastard in the world would have to admit that he was looking at a lotta woman. "You will not curse in my presence," she told the cop, "and you will not plague my child."
"Let it rest," the experienced cop said. "Take your boy home." To Lucky he said, "Lemmie use your phone."
Howard could hardly talk. "I'll be back tom
orrow," he whispered to Lucky.
"Yes, you will," Lucky told him. "Indeed you will."
As the cop called for the meat wagon, Lucky stood watching the street. Howard walked crooked because he only wore one shoe.
Lucky knew there would be no investigation, or not much; certainly no more than the dead man by the auction had gotten. Cause of death for Jolly would be marked down as just another Saturday night; and may God truly damn such Saturday nights.
September 1st
Loose Ends Growing Looser
Early Monday morning the auction truck pulled away from Jackson St. as Lester headed for work. Up Broadway, hang a right, and cruise easy on Bardstown Road. He almost drove past Charlie Weaver's place, but pulled over instead.
A sign painter already worked on the windows. On the sidewalk sat small tables and restaurant equipment. A slick-looking white man in new work clothes watched the painter. The slick-guy's blondish hair looked long and sort of faggy, but it was the pink Lincoln Continental at the curb that hollered. Nobody painted a car pink. Nobody.
"Pays to advertise," Lester muttered, either to the Lincoln or the restless, or possibly now resting, spirit of Charlie Weaver.
The painter was going off half-cocked. Instead of doing the name of the joint first, he worked on blue and orangey curlicues in loud pastels. It looked like some kind of tearoom for white ladies, but that faggy Lincoln said something else. Besides, Cave Hill sat almost right next door. What kind of damn fool started a tearoom next-a cemetery?
Lester gave a low whistle and wondered how Charlie Weaver handled all this . . . assuming Charlie was in a state to know, which seemed likely . . . a man couldn't help but think of Charlie. During an estate sale, Charlie had always told gentle stories about the dear-departed. Charlie's car had been a black Lincoln Zephyr from 1939, shiny as new. His signs were black on white with dark green trim.
"Hell of a note," Lester said to the truck, and pulled away. Then Lester said, "I give the fag three months. Busted in three months."
It was still early when he parked on Barringer Ave. down a little ways from the auction. Morning shadows of trees ran long across the street. Cool of morning, or at least not as hot, dwelt under ragged leaves of those trees. Fewer white glows of magnolias among dark leaves. Brick glowed dull. Shadows ran long. The hottest part of summer faltered.
He sat in the truck waiting for Wade to open, because a colored man did not hang around a closed store on Bardstown Road. As it was, a woman passing down the sidewalk gave a suspicious look . . . woman taking a bus to work, woman dressed to ramrod an underwear counter at a dime store. Lester pretended not to see her. Instead, he thought of Sunday.
Folks walked wide of Ozzie, but Ozzie didn't walk wide of nobody. On Sunday afternoon he held that street corner firmly in place, talking and crapping around. Three or four men came and went. Sapphire Top Spot sat closed but Ozzie had bootleg whiskey. That bad man actually seemed cheery.
Nobody on Jackson St. would say a word to cops. Nobody on Jackson St., ever again, was gonna mess with Ozzie; 'cause it turned out Ozzie was even meaner than anybody thought. And, for another thing. Ozzie would now be carrying Jolly's pistol. It wasn't right, but there it was; and not a soul, anywhere, but was relieved when that bad Sunday got over.
* * *
When Wade and Jim parked nearby, Lester climbed from the truck. He would have to say a word to Jim. Come Wednesday, when Jim went to Lucky's, Howard had a tale to tell.
Lots of dead people this summer. Lots, but summer was on the wane. Autumn in the air.
The house beside the auction looked somehow different. Rusty screens on the porch kept the front door from easy view. When Lester paused before the house he saw what Jim had seen earlier. Boards were taken from the door. Mrs. Samuels' son, the alive one, not the suicide, must have plans.
"We're up the crick," Wade said, when Lester entered the store. Wade had his pants on fire. He was already sweating, despite the morning cool. He looked rush-y, even though standing still. "We're getting more loads of store stuff, and I just signed a furniture factory. Three floors of genuine, mudcat trash."
"Where to?"
"Clarksville," Wade told him, talking about Indiana. "Bring the truck. My missus is at home. I'm leaving my kids here. Pick up help. Get a couple guys at the bridge." Wade turned to Jim. "Keep the damn loads separate. You know what to do. Do you know what to do?"
"Keep the loads separate."
"Lemmie talk to Jim a minute." Lester's voice went low. "Looks like we're this week in Indiana. When you see Howard he's been through something." Lester explained quick. Then he said, "Indiana. It ain't no place for civilized."
There were counties in Indiana that were meaner than the whole state of Kentucky. "I got to get goin'," Lester told Jim. "I know the right men to pick up if they ain't already hired."
With Wade and Lester gone Jim looked forward to a good day. Freedom almost never happened. Now that he worked for Lucky he even had a little money. Lucky paid top kid wages, 35 cents an hour.
A free day could be tricky. A kid had to be close to hand when needed, but a kid could hit the drugstore and pinball between times. As Wade and Lester pulled away, Jim turned to his sister.
"How many? Loads?"
"You," his sister told him, "are already thinking about goofing up." Nothing shy about his sister, at least not when she ran the show. It was pretty clear who had all the brains. "Front windows need washing," she told him.
He was a whole year older than her, and yet he never had a chance. Not only was she smarter, she gave a damn. He didn't.
He wandered from her, pretending he might actually go find cleaning stuff. It didn't make a lick of sense to argue. Not with Miss Pushy.
He was saved from window-wash as the Shell station's pickup pulled to the back door. There was rumor going around that the Shell station might turn into company-owned. Now it looked like the rumor was true, and the guy who leased the station was dumping inventory. Lots of it.
Starting just after the war all cars needed oil filters. Filling stations stocked lots of parts because they were also repair garages. They carried fuel pumps (older Fords went through them like toot through a tin horn) and clutches (something about pre-war Chevrolets and their vacuum shift) and tie rods (Packards with that soft front end).
As Jim sorted and stacked, working quick, the Shell guy went for another load. When the Shell guy returned with batteries and tires, his first load sat arranged and tidy. The guy, who should have been impressed, wasn't.
"This door open all the time?" He looked down the alley where nothin', absolutely nothin' ever happened.
"Nobody steals stuff." Jim started working the new load.
"I got a complete list of inventory."
"Most folks do." Jim worked the new load. "You want to go over it?"
And, like most folks, the guy didn't. He wanted to get back to work. He wanted to make a buck. He wanted what? . . . lube a Buick? . . . marry Betty Grable? . . . go to heaven?
By the time Jim got the second load stacked, a truck with furniture sat out by the front door. A rich lady had redecorated. She replaced her furniture. Her used furniture didn't look used very much.
You could always tell if a lady came from old money or new. New money people put covers on their couches. New money never owned fine veneer. New money had paintings of landscapes, not folks. New money was always sure it was about to get screwed. Old money, on the other hand, when screwed, stood above it; unless it was a major screw. In that case everybody needed to look sharp and stand way, way back. Lots of power ran through Louisville-town.
This load smelled of new money. The truck driver was a blondy-haired German with beer on his breath; and it no later than ten in the morning.
"Little tits," the guy told Jim about the rich lady, and Jim was shocked but fascinated. "Like pretty little pears. She kept leaning over. I should maybe go back." The driver was one of those guys proud of his strength. He boosted a heavy couch all by hi
s lonesome. "Don't know whether 'twas invitation or not."
By the time the man left and the furniture sat in a neat stack, it turned to late morning; almost late enough to con his sister . . . tell her he would go to White Castle, get a bag of burgers; a sociable lunch.
"The windows," she said.
He drifted away, pretending he once more went for window-wash, but easing toward the back door. Maybe step into the alley, walk away for a while. And boy, would that jazz up Miss Pushy.
He surely had thinking to do. Lester had said Jolly was dead. Lester talked fast, but sounded sad. It came to Jim that Lester didn't bull-around all that much . . . Lester was like Lucky in that way.
And, Jim told himself, he didn't actually know Jolly. Jim had seen him once on that day of the dump run. Since then, though, Jim and Howard talked a lot about Jolly. In a way, Jim sort-of knew Jolly.
All Lester said was Jolly got killed. If Jolly got run over by a car, Lester would have said. Jim thought of Ozzie, and how Ozzie cut people. Maybe Ozzie did something bad. Ozzie stood pretty big in the Jim and Howard gossip. It looked like there would be lots more gossip.
Thinking of Jolly . . . it was weird how you felt a hurt for somebody you didn't even hardly know. It felt almost the same as when the neighbor man killed himself. Sad, like. Like stuff happened that was bad and shouldn't.
Thinking of the dead man. Jim stepped into the alley where shadows now sat short as temperature climbed. The door to the garage, that once barely hung on its hinges, was now nailed tight. Boards across it . . . not that anyone with brains would want to go in there. The garage sagged, like one day it would fall down all by itself.
That bad storm, on the day when the man killed himself, probably tore up the roof of that garage. The little spotlights of sun might be gone. One corner of the garage had a good-size crack because of the lean.
He'd promised to show Howard where the man killed himself. They'd gotten side-tracked because Howard rode with Lester, and Lester started taking the truck home at night. Jim stepped over to the crack. Take a look. Something to do.