Rich Man, Poor Man

by Irwin Shaw

  When she opened the door, there were two men standing there. She knew them both, Mr. Tinker and his brother, the priest. She knew Mr. Tinker from the Works and everybody knew Father Tinker, a burly, red-faced man, who looked like a longshoreman who had made a mistake in his profession.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Jordache,” Mr. Tinker said, taking off his hat. His voice was sober, and his long, flabby face looked as though he had just discovered a terrible error in the books.

  “Hello, Mr. Tinker. Father,” Gretchen said.

  “I hope we’re not interrupting anything,” Mr. Tinker said, his voice more ceremoniously churchly than that of his ordained brother. “But we have to speak to your father. Is he in?”

  “Yes,” Gretchen said. “If you’ll come up … We’re just at dinner, but …”

  “I wonder if you’d be good enough to ask him to come down, child,” said the priest. He had the round, assured voice of a man who inspired confidence in women. “We have a most important matter to discuss with him in private.”

  “I’ll go get him,” Gretchen said. The men came into the dark little hallway and shut the door behind them, as though unwilling to be observed from the street. Gretchen put the light on. She felt peculiar about leaving the two men standing crowded together in the dark. She hurried up the steps, knowing that the Tinker brothers were looking at her legs as she mounted.

  Rudolph was cutting the cake as she went into the living room. Everybody looked at her inquiringly.

  “What the hell was that about?” Jordache asked.

  “Mr. Tinker’s down there,” Gretchen said. “With his brother, the priest. They want to speak to you, Pa.”

  “Well, why didn’t you ask them to come up?” Jordache accepted a slice of cake on a plate from Rudolph and took a huge bite.

  “They didn’t want to. They said they had a most important matter to discuss with you in private.”

  Thomas made a little sucking sound, pulling his tongue over his teeth, as though he had a morsel of food caught between one tooth and another.

  Jordache pushed back his chair. “Christ,” he said, “a priest. You’d think the bastards would at least leave a man in peace on a Sunday afternoon.” But he stood up and went out of the room. They could hear his heavy limping tread as he descended the staircase.

  Jordache didn’t greet the two men standing in the feeble light of the forty-watt bulb in the hallway. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “what the hell is so important that you’ve got to take a working man away from his Sunday dinner to talk about?”

  “Mr. Jordache,” Tinker said, “could we talk to you in private?”

  “What’s wrong with right here?” Jordache asked, standing above them on the last step, still chewing on his cake. The hallway smelled of the goose.

  Tinker looked up the stairway. “I wouldn’t like to be overheard,” he said.

  “As far as I can tell,” Jordache said, “we got nothing to say to each other that the whole goddamn town can’t hear. I don’t owe you any money and you don’t owe me none.” Still, he took the step down into the hallway and opened the door to the street and unlocked the front door of the bakery with the key he always carried in his pocket.

  The three men went into the bakery, its big window covered from within by a canvas blind for Sunday.

  VI

  Upstairs, Mary Jordache was waiting for the coffee to boil. Rudolph kept looking at his watch, worried that he’d be late for his date with Julie. Thomas sat slumped in his chair, humming tunelessly and tapping an annoying rhythm on his glass with his fork.

  “Stop that, please,” the mother said. “You’re giving me a headache.”

  “Sorry,” Thomas said. “I’ll take up the trumpet for my next concert.”

  Never a courteous moment, Mary Jordache thought. “What’s keeping them down there?” she asked querulously. “The one day we’re having a normal family meal.” She turned accusingly on Gretchen. “You work with Mr. Tinker,” she said. “Have you done something disgraceful downtown?”

  “Maybe they discovered I stole a brick,” Gretchen said.

  “Even one day,” her mother said, “is too much for this family to be polite.” She went into the kitchen to get the coffee, her back a drama of martyrdom.

  There was the sound of Jordache coming up the staircase. He came into the living room, his face expressionless. “Tom,” he said flatly, “come on downstairs.”

  “I got nothing to say to the Tinker family,” Thomas said.

  “They got something to say to you.” Jordache turned and went out of the room and down the stairs again. Thomas shrugged. He pulled at his fingers, tugging with one hand against the other, the way he did before a fight, and followed his father.

  Gretchen frowned. “Do you know what it’s all about?” she asked Rudolph.

  “Trouble,” Rudolph said gloomily. He knew he was going to be late for Julie.

  VII

  In the bakery the two Tinkers, one in a navy-blue suit and the other in his shiny, black, priest’s suit, looked like two ravens against the bare shelves and the gray marble counter. Thomas came in and Jordache closed the door behind him.

  I’m going to have to kill him, Thomas thought. “Good afternoon, Mr. Tinker,” he said, smiling boyishly. “Good afternoon, Father.”

  “My son,” the priest said portentously.

  “Tell him what you told me,” Jordache said.

  “We know all about it, son,” the priest said. “Claude confessed everything to his uncle, as was only right and natural. From confession flows repentance and from repentance forgiveness.”

  “Save that crap for Sunday school,” Jordache said. He was leaning with his back against the door, as though to make sure nobody was going to escape.

  Thomas didn’t say anything. He was wearing his little prefight smile.

  “The shameful burning of the cross,” the priest said. “On a day consecrated to the memory of the brave young men who have fallen in the struggle. On a day when I celebrated a holy mass for the repose of their souls at the altar of my own church. And with all the trials and intolerance we Catholics have undergone in this country and our bitter efforts to be accepted by our bigoted countrymen. And to have the deed perpetrated by two Catholic boys.” He shook his head sorrowfully.

  “He’s no Catholic,” Jordache said.

  “His mother and father were-born in the Church,” the priest said. “I have made inquiries.”

  “Did you do it or didn’t you do it?” Jordache asked.

  “I did it,” Thomas said. That yellow, gutless son of a bitch Claude.

  “Can you imagine, my son,” the priest went on, “what would happen to your family and Claude’s family if it ever became know who raised that flaming cross?”

  “We’d be driven out of town,” Mr. Tinker said excitedly. “That’s what would happen. Your father wouldn’t be able to give away a loaf of bread in this town. The people of this town remember you’re foreigners, Germans, even if you’d like to forget it.”

  “Oh, Christ, now,” Jordache said. “The red, white, and blue.”

  “Facts are facts,” Mr. Tinker said. “You might as well face it. I’ll give you another fact. If Boylan ever finds out who it was that set fire to his greenhouse he’ll sue us for our lives. He’ll get a smart lawyer that’ll make that old greenhouse seem like the most valuable property between here and New York.” He shook his fist at Thomas. “Your father won’t have two pennies to rub against each other in his pocket. You’re minors. We’re responsible, your father and me. The savings of a lifetime …”

  Thomas could see his father’s hands working, as though he would like to put them around Thomas’s neck and strangle him.

  “Keep calm, John,” the priest said to Tinker. “There’s no sense in getting the boy too upset. We have to depend upon his good sense to save us all.” He turned to Thomas. “I will not ask you what devilish impulse moved you to incite our Claude to do this awful deed …”

&nb
sp; “He said it was my idea?” Thomas asked.

  “A boy like Claude,” the priest said, “growing up in a Christian home, going to Mass every Sunday, would never dream up a desperate scheme like that on his own.”

  “Okay,” Thomas said. He sure as hell was going to be out looking for Claude.

  “Luckily,” the priest went on, in measured Gregorian tones, “when Claude visited his uncle, Dr. Robert Tinker, that awful night, with his cruelly wounded arm, Dr. Tinker was alone. He treated the boy and extracted the story from him and took him home in his own car. By the grace of God, he was not observed. But the burns are severe and Claude will be in bandages for at least three more weeks. It was not possible to keep him hidden at home safely until he was fully recovered. A maid might become suspicious, a delivery boy might get a glimpse of him, a school friend might pay a visit out of pity …”

  “Oh, Christ, Anthony,” Mr. Tinker said, “get out of the pulpit!” His face pale and working convulsively, his eyes bloodshot, he strode over to Thomas. “We drove the little bastard down to New York last night and we put him on a plane to California this morning. He’s got an aunt in San Francisco and he’ll be stashed away until he can get the bandages off and then he’s going to military school and I don’t care if he doesn’t come back to this town before he’s ninety. And if he knows what’s good for him your father’d damn well better get you out of town, too. As far away as possible, where nobody knows you and nobody’ll ask any questions.”

  “Don’t worry, Tinker,” Jordache said. “He’ll be out of town by nightfall.”

  “He’d better be,” Tinker said threateningly.

  “All right now.” Jordache opened the door. “I’ve had enough of the both of you. Get out.”

  “I think we ought to go now, John,” the priest said. “I’m certain Mr. Jordache will do the proper thing.”

  Tinker had to get in the last word. “You’re being let off easy,” he said. “All of you.” He marched out of the store.

  “God forgive you, my son,” the priest said, and followed his brother.

  Jordache locked the door and faced Thomas. “You’ve hung a sword over my head, you little shit,” he said. “You’ve got something coming to you.” He limped toward Thomas and swung his fist. It landed high on Thomas’s head. Thomas staggered and then, instinctively, hit back, going off the floor and catching his father flush on the temple with the hardest right hand he had ever thrown. Jordache didn’t fall, but swayed a little, his hands out in front of him. He stared disbelieving at his son, at the blue eyes icy with hatred. Then he saw Thomas smile and drop his hands to his side.

  “Go ahead and get it over with,” Thomas said contemptuously. “Sonny boy won’t hit his brave daddy any more.”

  Jordache swung once more. The left side of Thomas’s face began to swell immediately and became an angry wine red, but he merely stood there, smiling.

  Jordache dropped his hands. The one blow had been a symbol, nothing more. Meaningless, he thought dazedly. Sons.

  “Okay,” he said. “That’s over. Your brother’s going to take you on the bus to Grafton. From there you’ll take the first train to Albany. In Albany you’ll change for Ohio. Alone. My brother’ll have to take care of you. I’ll call him today and he’ll be expecting you. Don’t bother packing. I don’t want anybody to see you leaving town with a valise.” He unlocked the bakery door. Thomas went out, blinking in the Sunday afternoon sunlight.

  “You wait here,” Jordache said. “I’ll send your brother down. I don’t fancy any farewell scenes with your mother.” He locked the bakery door and limped into the house.

  Only after his father was gone did Thomas touch the tender, swollen side of his jaw.

  VIII

  Ten minutes later, Jordache and Rudolph came down. Thomas was leaning against the bakery window, staring calmly across the street. Rudolph was carrying the jacket of Thomas’s one suit, striped and greenish. It had been bought two years before and was too small for him. He couldn’t move his shoulders freely when he put it on and his hands dangled far out of the tight sleeves.

  Rudolph looked dazed and his eyes widened when he saw the welt on Thomas’s cheek. Jordache had the appearance of a sick man. Under the naturally dark tint of his skin, there was a wash of pallid green and his eyes were puffy. One punch, Thomas thought, and look what happens to him.

  “Rudolph knows what he has to do,” Jordache said. “I gave him some money. He’ll buy your ticket to Cleveland. Here’s your uncle’s address.” He handed Thomas a slip of paper.

  I’m moving up in class, Thomas thought, I have uncles for emergencies, too. Call me Tinker.

  “Now get moving,” Jordache said. “And keep your trap shut.”

  The boys started down the street. Jordache watched, feeling the vein throb in his temple where Thomas had hit him and not seeing anything clearly. His sons moved off in a blur down the sunny empty slum street, the one tallish and slender and well dressed in the gray-flannel slacks and a blue blazer, the other almost as tall but wider and looking childish in the jacket that was too small for him. When the boys had disappeared around a corner, Jordache turned and walked in the opposite direction, toward the river. This was one afternoon he had to be alone. He would call his brother later. His brother and his wife were just slobs enough to take in the son of a man who had kicked them out of his house and hadn’t even said thank you for the yearly Christmas card that was the only evidence that two men who had been born long ago in the same house in Cologne and who were living in different parts of America were, in fact, brothers. He could just hear his brother saying to his fat wife, in that ineradicable German accent, “After all, vat can ve do? Blut is thicker than vater.”

  “What in hell happened?” Rudolph asked as soon as they were out of their father’s sight.

  “Nothing,” Thomas said.

  “He hit you,” Rudolph said. “Your jaw’s a sight.”

  “It was a terrible blow,” Thomas said mockingly. “He’s next in line for a shot at the title.”

  “He came upstairs looking sick,” Rudolph said.

  “I clipped him one.” Thomas grinned, remembering.

  “You hit him?”

  “Why not?” Thomas said. “What’s a father for?”

  “Christ! And you’re still alive?”

  “I’m alive,” said Thomas.

  “No wonder he’s getting rid of you.” Rudolph shook his head. He couldn’t help being angry at Thomas. Because of Thomas he was missing his date with Julie. He would have liked to pass her house, it was only a few blocks out of the way to the bus station, but his father had said he wanted Thomas out of town immediately and with nobody knowing about it. “What the hell is the matter with you, anyway?”

  “I’m a high-spirited, red-blooded, normal American boy,” Thomas said.

  “It must be real trouble,” Rudolph said. “He gave me fifty bucks for the train fare. Anytime he shells out fifty bucks, it must be something enormous.”

  “I was discovered spying for the Japs,” Thomas said placidly.

  “Oh, boy, you’re smart,” Rudolph said, and they walked the rest of the way to the bus station in silence.

  They got off the bus at Grafton near the railroad station and Thomas sat under a tree in a little park across the square from the station while Rudolph went in to see about Thomas’s ticket. The next train to Albany was in fifteen minutes and Rudolph bought the ticket from the wizened man with a green eyeshade behind the wicket. He didn’t buy the ticket for the connection to Cleveland. His father had told him he didn’t want anybody to know Thomas’s final destination, so Thomas was going to have to buy the ticket himself at the station in Albany.

  As he took the change, Rudolph had an impulse to buy another ticket for himself. In the opposite direction. To New York. Why should Thomas be the first one to escape? But of course, he didn’t buy any ticket to New York. He went out of the station and past the dozing drivers waiting in their 1939 taxis for the arrival of th
e next train. Thomas was sitting on a bench under a tree, his legs sprawled out in a V, his heels dug into the scrubby lawn. He looked unhurried and peaceful, as though nothing was happening to him.

  Rudolph glanced around to make sure nobody was watching them. “Here’s your ticket,” he said, handing it to Thomas, who looked at it lazily. “Put it away, put it away,” Rudolph said. “And here’s the change for the fifty dollars. Forty-two fifty. For your ticket from Albany. You’ll have a lot left over, the way I figure it.”

  Thomas pocketed the money without counting it. “The old man must have shit blood,” Thomas said, “when he took it out from wherever he hides his dough. Did you see where he keeps it?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. I could come back some dark night and lift it. Although I don’t suppose you’d tell me, even if you knew. Not my brother Rudolph.”

  They watched a roadster drive up with a girl at the wheel and a lieutenant in the Air Force beside her. They got out of the car and went into the shade of the tiled overhang of the depot. Then they stopped and kissed. The girl was wearing a pale-blue dress and the summery wind twirled it around her legs. The lieutenant was tall and very tan, as though he had been in the desert. He had medals and wings on his green Eisenhower jacket and he was carrying a stuffed flight bag. Rudolph heard the roar of a thousand engines in foreign skies as he watched the couple. Again, he felt the pang because he had been born too late and missed the war.

  “Kiss me, darling,” Thomas said, “I bombed Tokyo.”

  “What the hell are you proving?” Rudolph said.

  “You ever get laid?” Thomas asked.

  The echo of his father’s question the day Jordache hit Miss Lenaut disturbed Rudolph. “What’s it to you?”

  Thomas shrugged, watching the two people go through the open door of the station. “Nothing. I just thought I’m going to be away a long time, maybe we ought to have a heart-to-heart talk.”

  “Well, if you must know, I haven’t,” Rudolph said stiffly.