by Irwin Shaw
“Sorry, Rudolph.” Boylan put out his hand and touched Rudolph’s arm. “I was standing here, telling myself she was going to walk through that door with you and she didn’t walk through. Disappointment makes for bad manners. It’s a good reason never to put yourself in a position in which you can be disappointed. Forgive me. Of course, you’re not going home. We’re going to take advantage of our freedom to have a night on the town. There’s quite a good restaurant a few blocks from here and we’ll start with that. Barman, may I have the check, please?”
He put some bills on the bar. The young man in the turtleneck sweater came up to them. “May I invite you gentlemen for a drink?” He kept his eyes on Rudolph, smiling.
“You’re a fool,” Boylan said, without heat.
“Oh, come off it, dearie,” the man said.
Without warning, Boylan punched him, hard, on the nose. The man fell back against the bar, the blood beginning to seep from his nose.
“Let’s go, Rudolph,” Boylan said calmly.
They were out of the place before the barman or anyone else could make a move.
“I haven’t been there since before the war,” Boylan said, as they headed toward Sixth Avenue. “The clientele has changed.”
If Gretchen had walked through the door, Rudolph thought, there would have been one less nosebleed in New York City that night.
After dinner at a restaurant where the bill, Rudolph noted, was over twelve dollars, they went to a night club in a basement that was called Cafe Society. “You might get some ideas for the River Five,” Boylan said. “They have one of the best bands in the city. And there’s usually a new colored girl who can sing.”
The place was crowded, mostly with young people, many of whom were black, but Boylan got them a little table next to the small dance floor with an accurate tip. The music was deafening and wonderful. If the River Five was to learn anything from the band at Cafe Society it would be to throw their instruments into the river.
Rudolph leaned forward intently, gloriously battered by the music, his eyes glued on the Negro trumpeter. Boylan sat back smoking and drinking whiskies, in a small, private zone of silence. Rudolph had ordered a whiskey, too, because he had to order something, but it stood untouched on the table. With all the drinking Boylan had done that afternoon and evening, he would probably be in no condition to drive and Rudolph knew that he had to remain sober to take the wheel. Boylan had taught him to drive on the back roads around Port Philip.
“Teddy!” A woman in a short evening dress, with bare arms and shoulders, was standing in front of the table. “Teddy Boylan, I thought you were dead.”
Boylan stood up. “Hello, Cissy,” he said. “I’m not dead.”
The woman flung her arms around him and kissed him, on the mouth. Boylan looked annoyed and turned his head. Rudolph stood up uncertainly.
“Where on earth have you been hiding yourself?” The woman stepped back a little, but held onto Boylan’s sleeve. She was wearing a lot of jewelry that glittered in the reflection of the spotlight on the trumpet. Rudolph couldn’t tell whether the jewelry was real or not. She was startlingly made up, with colored eyeshadow and a brilliantly rouged mouth. She kept looking at Rudolph, smiling. Boylan didn’t make any move to introduce him and Rudolph didn’t know whether he ought to sit down or not. “It’s been centuries,” she went on, not waiting for any answers, continuing to look boldly at Rudolph. “There’ve been the wildest rumors. It’s just sinful, the way your nearest and dearest drop out of sight these days. Come on over to the table. The whole gang’s there. Susie, Jack, Karen … They’re just longing to see you. You’re looking absolutely marvelous, darling. Ageless. Imagine finding you in a place like this. Why, it’s an absolute resurrection.” She still kept smiling widely at Rudolph. “Do come over to the table. Bring your beautiful young friend with you. I don’t think I caught the name, darling.”
“May I present Mr. Rudolph Jordache,” Boylan said stiffly. “Mrs. Alfred Sykes.”
“Cissy to my friends,” the woman said. “He is ravishing. I don’t blame you for switching, darling.”
“Don’t be more idiotic than God originally made you, Cissy,” Boylan said.
The woman laughed. “I see you’re just as much of a shit as ever, Teddy,” she said. “Do come over to the table and say hello to the group.” With a fluttery wave of the hand, she turned and made her way through the jungle of tables toward the back of the room.
Boylan sat down and motioned to Rudolph to sit down, too. Rudolph could feel himself blushing. Luckily, it was too dark for anyone to tell.
Boylan drained his whiskey. “Silly woman,” he said. “I had an affair with her before the war. She wears badly.” Boylan didn’t look at Rudolph. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “It’s too damned noisy. And there are too many of our colored brethren on the premises. It’s like a slave ship after a successful mutiny.”
He waved to a waiter and got the check and paid it and they redeemed their coats from the hatcheck girl and went out. Mrs. Sykes, Cissy to her friends, was the first person Boylan had ever introduced Rudolph to, not counting Perkins, of course. If that’s what Boylan’s friends were like, you could understand why Boylan stayed up on his hill, alone. Rudolph was sorry the woman had come over to the table. The blush reminded him painfully that he was young and unworldly. Also, he would have liked to stay in there and listen to that trumpeter all night.
They walked east on Fourth Street, toward where the car was parked, past darkened shop fronts and bars which were little bursts of light and music and loud conversation on their way.
“New York is hysterical,” Boylan said. “Like an unsatisfied, neurotic woman. It’s an aging nymphomaniac of a city. God, the time I’ve wasted here.” The woman’s appearance had plainly disturbed him. “I’m sorry about that bitch,” he said.
“I didn’t mind,” Rudolph said. He did mind, but he didn’t want Boylan to think it bothered him.
“People’re filthy,” Boylan said. “The leer is the standard expression on the American face. Next time we come to town, bring your girl along. You’re too sensitive a boy to be exposed to rot like that.”
“I’ll ask her,” Rudolph said. He was almost sure Julie wouldn’t come. She didn’t like his being friendly with Boylan. Beast of prey, she called him, and the Peroxide Man.
“Maybe we’ll ask Gretchen and her young man and I’ll go through my old address books and see if any of the girls I used to know are still alive and we’ll make it a party.”
“It ought to be fun,” Rudolph said. “Like the sinking of the Titanic.”
Boylan laughed. “The clear vision of youth,” he said. “You’re a rewarding boy.” His tone was affectionate. “With any luck, you’ll be a rewarding man.”
They were at the car now. There was a parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Boylan tore it up without looking at it.
“I’ll drive, if you like,” Rudolph said.
“I’m not drunk,” Boylan said curtly and got behind the wheel.
III
Thomas sat in the cracked chair, tilted back against the garage wall, a grass-stalk between his teeth, looking across at the lumberyard. It was a sunny day and the light reflected metallically off the last blaze of autumn leaves on the trees along the highway. There was a car that was supposed to be greased before two o’clock, but Thomas was in no hurry. He had had a fight the night before at a high-school dance and he was sore all over and his hands were puffed. He had kept cutting in on a boy who played tackle for the high-school team because the tackle’s girl was giving him the eye all night. The tackle had warned him to lay off, but he’d kept cutting in just the same. He knew it was going to wind up in a fight and he’d felt the old mixture of sensations, pleasure, fear, power, cold excitement, as he saw the tackle’s heavy face getting darker and darker while Thomas danced with his girl. Finally the two of them, he and the tackle, had gone outside the gym where the dance was taking place. The tackle was a monster, with
big, heavy fists, and fast. That sonofabitch Claude would have pissed in his pants with joy if he had been there. Thomas had put the tackle down in the end, but his ribs felt as though they were caving in. It was his fourth fight in Elysium since the summer.
He had a date with the tackle’s girl for tonight.
Uncle Harold came out of the little office behind the filling station. Thomas knew that people had complained to Uncle Harold about his fights, but Uncle Harold hadn’t said anything about them. Uncle Harold also knew that there was a car to be greased before two o’clock, but he didn’t say anything about that either, although Thomas could tell from the expression on Uncle Harold’s face that it pained him to see Thomas lounging like that against the wall, chewing lazily on a stalk of grass. Uncle Harold didn’t say anything about anything anymore. Uncle Harold looked bad these days—his plump pink face was now yellowish and sagging and he had the expression on his face of a man waiting for a bomb to go off. The bomb was Thomas. All he had to do was hint to Tante Elsa about what was going on between Uncle Harold and Clothilde and they wouldn’t be singing Tristan and Isolde for a long time to come in the Jordache household. Thomas had no intention of telling Tante Elsa, but he didn’t let Uncle Harold in on the news. Let him stew.
Thomas had stopped bringing his lunch from home. For three days running he had left the paper bag of sandwiches and fruit that Clothilde prepared for him lying on the kitchen table when he had gone off to work. Clothilde hadn’t said anything. After three days she had caught on, and there were no more sandwiches waiting for him. He ate at the diner down the highway. He could afford it. Uncle Harold had raised him ten dollars a week. Slob.
“If anybody wants me,” Uncle Harold said, “I’m down at the showroom.”
Thomas kept staring out across the highway, chewing on the stalk of grass. Uncle Harold sighed and got into his car and drove off.
From inside the garage there came the sound of Coyne working a lathe. Coyne had seen him in one of his fights on a Sunday down at the lake and now was very polite with him and if Thomas neglected a job, Coyne more often than not would do it himself. Thomas played with the idea of letting Coyne do the two o’clock grease job.
Mrs. Dornfeld drove up in her 1940 Ford, and stopped at a pump. Thomas got up and walked over to the car slowly, not rushing anything.
“Hello, Tommy,” Mrs. Dornfeld said.
“Hi.”
“Fill her up, please, Tommy,” Mrs. Dornfeld said. She was a plump blonde of about thirty with disappointed, childish, blue eyes. Her husband worked as a teller in the bank, which was convenient, as Mrs. Dornfeld always knew where he was during business hours.
Thomas hung up the hose and screwed the cap back on and started washing the windshield.
“It would be nice if you paid me a visit today, Tommy,” Mrs. Dornfeld said. That was always what she called it—a visit. She had a prissy way of talking, with little flutterings of her eyelids and lips and hands.
“Maybe I can break loose at two o’clock,” Thomas said. Mr. Dornfeld was settled behind the bars of his teller’s cage from one-thirty on.
“We can have a nice long visit,” Mrs. Dornfeld said.
“If I can break loose.” Thomas didn’t know how he would feel after lunch.
She gave him a five-dollar bill and clutched at his hand when he gave her change. Every once in awhile after one of his visits she slipped him a ten-dollar bill. Mr. Dornfeld must be giving her nothing, but nothing.
There was always lipstick on his collar when he came from visiting Mrs. Dornfeld and he left it on purposely so that when Clothilde collected his clothes for washing she’d be sure to see it. Clothilde never mentioned the lipstick. The shirt would be neatly washed and ironed and left on his bed the next day.
None of it really worked. Not Mrs. Dornfeld, nor Mrs. Berryman, nor the twins, nor any of the others. Pigs, all of them. None of them really helped him get over Clothilde. He was sure Clothilde knew—you couldn’t hide anything in this stinking little town—and he hoped it made her feel bad. At least as bad as he felt. But if she did feel bad, she didn’t show it.
“Two o’clock is happy time,” Mrs. Dornfeld said.
It was enough to make a man throw up.
Mrs. Dornfeld started the motor and fluttered off. He went back and sat down on the chair tilted against the wall. Coyne came out of the garage, wiping his hands. “When I was your age,” Coyne said, looking after the Ford disappearing down the highway, “I was sure it would fall off if I did it with a married woman.”
“It doesn’t fall off,” Thomas said.
“So I see,” Coyne said. He wasn’t a bad guy, Coyne. When Thomas had celebrated his seventeenth birthday Coyne had broken out a pint of bourbon and they’d finished it off together in one afternoon.
Thomas was wiping the gravy of the hamburger off his plate with a piece of bread when Joe Kuntz, the cop, came into the diner. It was ten to two and the diner was almost empty, just a couple of the hands from the lumberyard finishing up their lunch, and Elias, the counterman, swabbing off the grill. Thomas hadn’t decided yet whether or not he was going to visit Bertha Dornfeld.
Kuntz came up to where Thomas was sitting at the counter and said, “Thomas Jordache?”
“Hi, Joe,” Thomas said. Kuntz stopped in at the garage a couple of times a week to shoot the breeze. He was always threatening to leave the force because the pay was so bad.
“You acknowledge that you are Thomas Jordache?” Kuntz said in his cop voice.
“What’s going on, Joe?” Thomas asked.
“I asked you a question, son,” Kuntz said, bulging out of his uniform.
“You know my name,” Thomas said. “What’s the joke?”
“You better come with me, son,” Kuntz said. “I have a warrant for your arrest.” He grabbed Thomas’s arm above the elbow. Elias stopped scrubbing the grill and the guys from the lumberyard stopped eating and it was absolutely quiet in the diner.
“I ordered a piece of pie and a cup of coffee,” Thomas said. “Take your meathooks off me, Joe.”
“What’s he owe you, Elias?” Kuntz asked, his fingers tight on Thomas’s arm.
“With the coffee and pie or without the coffee and pie?” Elias said.
“Without.”
“Seventy-five cents,” Elias said.
“Pay up, son, and come along quiet,” Kuntz said. He didn’t make more than twenty arrests a year and he was getting mileage out of this one.
“Okay, okay,” Thomas said. He put down eighty-five cents. “Christ, Joe,” he said, “you’re breaking my arm.”
Kuntz walked him quickly out of the diner. Pete Spinelli, Joe’s partner, was sitting at the wheel of the prowl car, with the motor running.
“Pete,” Thomas said, “will you tell Joe to let go of me.”
“Shut up, kid,” Spinelli said.
Kuntz shoved him into the back seat and got in beside him and the prowl car started toward town.
“The charge is statutory rape,” Sergeant Horvath said. “There is a sworn complaint. I’ll notify your uncle and he can get a lawyer for you. Take him away, boys.”
Thomas was standing between Kuntz and Spinelli. They each had an arm now. They hustled him off and put him in the lockup. Thomas looked at his watch. It was twenty past two. Bertha Dornfeld would have to go without her visit today.
There was one other prisoner in the single cell of the jail, a ragged, skinny man of about fifty, with a week’s growth of beard on his face. He was in for poaching deer. This was the twenty-third time he had been booked for poaching deer, he told Thomas.
IV
Harold Jordache paced nervously up and down the platform. Just tonight the train had to be late. He had heartburn and he pushed anxiously at his stomach with his hand. When there was trouble, the trouble went right to his stomach. And ever since two-thirty yesterday afternoon, when Horvath had called him from the jail, it had been nothing but trouble. He hadn’t slept a wink, because Elsa had cried
all night, in between bouts of telling him that they were disgraced for life, that she could never show her face in town again, and what a fool he had been to take a wild animal like that into the house. She was right, he had to admit it, he had been an idiot, his heart was too big. Family or no family, that afternoon when Axel called him from Port Philip, he should have said no.
He thought of Thomas down in the jail, talking his head off like a lunatic, admitting everything, not showing any shame or remorse, naming names. Who could tell what he would say, once he started talking like that? He knew the little monster hated him. What was to stop him from telling about the black-market ration tickets, the faked-up secondhand cars with gear boxes that wouldn’t last for more than a hundred miles, the under-the-counter markups on new cars to get around the Price Control, the valve and piston jobs on cars that had nothing more wrong with them than a clogged fuel line? Even about Clothilde? You let a boy like that into your house and you became his prisoner. The heartburn stabbed at Uncle Harold like a knife. He began to sweat, even though it was cold on the station, with the wind blowing.
He hoped Axel was bringing plenty of money along with him. And the birth certificate. He had sent Axel a telegram asking Axel to call him because Axel didn’t have a telephone. In this day and age! He had made the telegram sound as ominous as he could, to make sure Axel would call, but even so he was half-surprised when the phone rang in his house and he heard his brother’s voice on the wire.
He heard the train coming around the curve toward the station and stepped back nervously from the edge of the platform. In his state he wouldn’t be surprised if he had a heart attack and fell down right where he stood. The train slowed to a halt and a few people got off and hurried away in the wind. He had a moment of panic. He didn’t see Axel. It would be just like Axel to leave him alone with the problem. Axel was an unnatural father; he hadn’t written once to either Thomas or himself, all the time that Thomas had been in Elysium. Neither had the mother, that skinny hoity-toity whore’s daughter. Or the other two kids. What could you expect from a family like that?