Rich Man, Poor Man

by Irwin Shaw

  Gretchen was sick with the sickness of the age. Everything was based on sex. The pursuit of the sacred orgasm. She would say love, he supposed, but sex would do as a description as far as he was concerned. From what he had seen, what happiness lay there was bought at too high a price, tainting all other happiness. Having a sleazy woman clutch you at four in the morning, trying to claim you, hurling a glass at you with murderous hatred because you’d had enough of her in two hours, even though that had been the implicit bargain to begin with. Having a silly little girl taunt you in front of her friends, making you feel like some sort of frozen eunuch, then grabbing your cock disdainfully in broad daylight. If it was sex or even anything like love that had brought his mother and father together originally, they had wound up like two crazed animals in a cage in the zoo, destroying each other. Then the marriages of the second generation. Beginning with Tom. What future faced him, captured by that whining, avaricious, brainless, absurd doll of a woman? And Gretchen, herself, superior and scathing in her helpless sensuality, hating herself for the beds she fell into, adrift from a worthless and betrayed husband. Who was immersing himself in the ignominy of detectives, keyhole-peeping, lawyers, divorce—he or she?

  Screw them all, he thought. Then laughed to himself. The word was ill chosen.

  The telephone rang. “Your brother is in the lobby, Mr. Jordache,” the clerk said.

  “Will you send him up, please?” Rudolph swung off the bed, straightened out the covers. For some reason, he didn’t want Tom to see that he had been lying down, with its implication of luxury and sloth. Hurriedly, he stuffed all the architects’ drawings into a closet. He wanted the room to look bare, without clues. He did not want to seem important, engrossed in large affairs, when his brother appeared.

  There was a knock on the door and Rudolph opened it. At least he’s wearing a tie, Rudolph thought meanly, for the opinion of the clerks and bellboys in the lobby. He shook Thomas’s hand and said, “Come on in. Sit down. Want a drink? I have a bottle of Scotch, but I can ring down if you’d like something else.”

  “Scotch’ll do.” Thomas sat stiffly in an armchair, his already-gnarled hands hanging down, his suit bunched up around his great shoulders.

  “Water?” Rudolph said. “I can call down for soda if you …”

  “Water’s fine.”

  I sound like a nervous hostess, Rudolph thought, as he went into the bathroom and poured water out of the tap into Thomas’s drink.

  Rudolph raised his glass. “Skoal.”

  “Yeah,” Thomas said. He drank thirstily.

  “There were some good write-ups this morning,” Rudolph said.

  “Yeah,” Thomas said. “I read the papers. Look, there’s no sense in wasting any time, Rudy.” He dug into his pocket and brought out a fat envelope. He stood up and went over to the bed and opened the envelope flap and turned it upside down. Bills showered over the bedspread.

  “What the hell are you doing, Tom?” Rudolph asked. He did not deal in cash—he rarely had more than fifty dollars in his pocket—and the scattering of bills on the hotel bed was vaguely disquieting to him, illicit, like the division of loot in a gangster movie.

  “They’re hundred-dollar bills.” Thomas crumpled the empty envelope and tossed it accurately into the waste-basket. “Five thousand dollars’ worth. They’re yours.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rudolph said. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “There’s your goddamn college education that I did you out of,” Thomas said. “Paying off those crooks in Ohio. I tried to give it to Pa, but he happened to be dead that day. Now it’s yours.”

  “You work too hard for your money,” Rudolph said, remembering the blood of the night before, “to throw it away like this.”

  “I didn’t work for this money,” Thomas said. “I got it easy—the way Pa lost his—by blackmail. A long time ago. It’s been in a vault for years, waiting. Feel free, brother. I didn’t take any punishment for it.”

  “It’s a stupid gesture,” Rudolph said.

  “I’m a stupid man,” Thomas said. “I make stupid gestures. Take it. Now I’m rid of you.” He turned away from the bed and finished his drink in one gulp. “I’ll be going now.”

  “Wait a minute. Sit down.” Rudolph pushed at his brother’s arms, feeling, even at that hurried touch, the ferocious power in them. “I don’t need it. I’m doing great. I just made a deal that’s going to make me a rich man, I …”

  “I’m happy to hear it, but it’s beside the point.” Stonily, Thomas remained standing. “I want to pay off our fucking family and this does it.”

  “I won’t take it, Tom. Put it in the bank for your kid, at least.”

  “I’ll take care of my kid my own way, don’t you worry about that.” Now he sounded dangerous.

  “It’s not mine,” Rudolph said helplessly. “What the hell am I going to do with it?”

  “Piss on it. Blow it on dames. Give it to your favorite charity,” Thomas said. “I’m not walking out of this room with it.”

  “Sit down, for Christ’s sake.” This time Rudolph pushed hard at his brother, edging him toward the armchair, risking the blow that could come at any moment. “I have to talk to you.”

  Rudolph refilled Thomas’s glass and his own and sat across from his brother on a straight wooden chair. The window was open a little and the city wind entered in little gusts. The bills on the bed fluttered a little, like a small, complicated animal, shuddering. Both Thomas and Rudolph sat as far away from the bed as possible, as though the first one inadvertently to touch a bill would have to claim them all.

  “Listen, Tom,” Rudolph began, “we’re not kids anymore, sleeping in the same bed, getting on each other’s nerves, competing with each other, whether we knew it or not. We’re two grown men and we’re brothers.”

  “Where were you for ten years, Brother, you and Princess Gretchen?” Thomas said. “Did you ever send a postcard?”

  “Forgive me,” Rudolph said. “And if you talk to Gretchen, she’ll ask you to forgive her, too.”

  “If I see her first,” Thomas said, “she’ll never get a chance to get close enough to me to say hello.”

  “Last night, watching you fight, made us realize,” Rudolph persisted. “We’re a family, we owe each other something …”

  “I owed the family five thousand bucks. There it is, on the bed. Nobody owes anybody anything.” Thomas kept his head down, his chin almost on his chest.

  “Whatever you say, whatever you think about the way I behaved all this time,” Rudolph said, “I want to help you now.”

  “I don’t need any help.” Thomas drank most of his whiskey.

  “Yes, you do. Look, Tom,” Rudolph said, “I’m no expert, but I’ve seen enough fights to have an idea of what to expect from a fighter. You’re going to get hurt. Badly. You’re a club fighter. It’s one thing to be the champ of the neighborhood, but when you go up against trained, talented, ambitious men—and they’re going to get better each time now for you—because you’re still on the way up—you’re going to get chopped to pieces. Aside from the injuries—concussions, cuts, kidneys—”

  “I only have half hearing in one ear,” Thomas volunteered, surprisingly. The professional talk had drawn him out of his shell. “For more than a year now. What the hell, I’m not a musician.”

  “Aside from the injuries, Tom,” Rudolph went on, “there’s going to come the day when you’ve lost more than you’ve won, or you’re suddenly all worn out and some kid will drop you. You’ve seen it dozens of times. And that’ll be the end. You won’t get a bout. How much money will you have then? How will you earn your living then, starting all over at thirty, thirty-five, even?”

  “Don’t hex me, you sonofabitch,” Thomas said.

  “I’m being realistic.” Rudolph got up and filled Thomas’s glass again, to keep him in the room.

  “Same old Rudy,” Thomas said mockingly. “Always with a happy, realistic word for h
is kid brother.” But he accepted the drink.

  “I’m at the head of a large organization now,” Rudolph said, “I’m going to have a lot of jobs to fill. I could find a place in it for you, a permanent place …”

  “Doing what? Driving a truck at fifty bucks a week?”

  “Better than that,” Rudolph said. “You’re no fool. You could wind up as a manager of a branch or a department,” Rudolph said, wondering if he was lying. “All it takes is some common sense and a willingness to learn.”

  “I have no common sense and I’m not willing to learn anything,” Thomas said. “Don’t you know that?” He stood up. “I’ve got to get going now. I have a family waiting for me.”

  Rudolph shrugged, looked across at the bills fluttering gently on the bedspread. He stood up, too.

  “Have it your own way,” he said. “For the time being.”

  “There ain’t no time being.” Thomas moved toward the door.

  “I’ll come and visit you and see your kid,” Rudolph said. “Tonight? I’ll take you and your wife to dinner tonight. What do you say to that?”

  “I say balls to that.” Thomas opened the door, stood there. “Come and see me fight sometime. Bring Gretchen. I can use fans. But don’t bother to come back to the dressing room.”

  “Think everything over. You know where you can reach me,” Rudolph said wearily. He was unused to failure and it exhausted him. “Anyway, you might come up to Whitby and say hello to your mother. She asks about you.”

  “What does she ask—have they hung him yet?” Thomas grinned crookedly.

  “She says she wants to see you at least once more before she dies.”

  “Maestro,” Thomas said, “the violins, please.”

  Rudolph wrote down the Whitby address and the telephone number. “Here’s where we live, in case you change your mind.”

  Thomas hesitated, then took the slip of paper and jammed it carelessly into his pocket. “See you in ten years, brother,” he said. “Maybe.” He went out and closed the door behind him. The room seemed much larger without his presence.

  Rudolph stared at the door. How long can hatred last? In a family, forever, he supposed. Tragedy in the House of Jordache, now a supermarket. He went over to the bed and gathered up the bills and put them carefully into an envelope and sealed it. It was too late in the afternoon to put the money in the bank. He’d have to lock it in the hotel safe overnight.

  One thing was certain. He was not going to use it for himself. Tomorrow he’d invest it in Dee Cee stock in his brother’s name. The time would come, he was sure, when Thomas could use it. And it would be a lot more than five thousand dollars by then. Money did not negotiate forgiveness, but it could be depended upon, finally, to salve old wounds.

  He was bone tired, but sleep was out of the question. He got out the architect’s drawings again, grandiose imaginings, paper dreams, the hopes of years, imperfectly realized. He stared at the pencil lines that would be transformed within six months into the neon of the name of Calderwood, against the northern night. He grimaced unhappily.

  The phone rang. It was Willie, buoyant but sober. “Merchant Prince,” Willie said, “how would you like to come down here and have dinner with the old lady and me? We’ll go to a joint in the neighborhood.”

  “I’m sorry, Willie,” Rudolph said. “I’m busy tonight. I have a date.”

  “Put it in once for me, Prince,” Willie said lightly. “See you soon.”

  Rudolph hung up slowly. He would not see Willie soon, at least not for dinner.

  Look behind you, Willie, as you pass through doors.

  Chapter 7

  I

  “My dear son,” he read, in the round schoolgirlish handwriting, “your brother Rudolph was good enough to provide me with your address in New York City and I am taking the opportunity to get in touch with my lost boy after all these years.”

  Oh, Christ, he thought, another county heard from. He had just come in and had found the letter waiting for him on the table in the hallway. He heard Teresa clanging pots in the kitchen and the kid making gobbling sounds.

  “I’m home,” he called and went into the living room and sat down on the couch, pushing a toy fire engine out of the way. He sat there, on the orange-satin couch Teresa had insisted upon buying, holding the letter dangling from his hand, trying to decide whether or not to throw it away then and there.

  Teresa came in, in an apron, a little sweat glistening on her make-up, the kid crawling after her.

  “You got a letter,” she said. She was not very friendly these days, ever since she had heard about his going to England and leaving her behind.

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s a woman’s handwriting.”

  “It’s from my mother, for Christ’s sake.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Look.” He shoved the letter under her nose.

  She squinted to read. She was very nearsighted but refused to wear glasses. “It’s awful young handwriting for a mother,” she said, retreating reluctantly. “A mother, now. Your family is growing in leaps and bounds.”

  She went back to the kitchen, picking up the kid, who was squalling that he wanted to stay where he was.

  To spite Teresa, Thomas decided to read the letter and see what the old bitch had to say.

  “Rudolph described the circumstances of your meeting”—he read—“and I must say I was more than a little shocked at your choice of a profession. Although I shouldn’t be surprised, considering your father’s nature and the example he set you with that dreadful punching bag hanging out in the back yard all the time. Still, it’s an honest living, I suppose, and your brother says you seem to have settled down with a wife and a child and I hope you are happy.

  “Rudolph did not describe your wife to me, but I hope that your family life is happier than your father’s and mine. I don’t know whether Rudolph mentioned it to you but your father just vanished one fine night, with the cat.

  “I am not well and I have the feeling my days are numbered. I would like to come to New York City and see my son and my new grandson, but traveling is very difficult for me. If Rudolph saw fit to buy an automobile instead of the motorcycle he charges around town on perhaps I could manage the trip. He might even be able to drive me to church one Sunday, so I could begin to make up for the years of paganism your father forced me to endure. But I guess I shouldn’t complain. Rudolph has been very kind and takes good care of me and has got me a television set which makes the long days bearable. He seems to be so busy on his own projects that he barely comes home to sleep. From what I can tell, especially from the way he dresses, he is doing quite well. But he was always a good dresser and always managed to have money in his pocket.

  “I cannot honestly say that I would like to see the entire family reunited, as I have crossed your sister from my heart, for good and sufficient reason, but seeing my two sons together again would bring tears of joy to my eyes.

  “I was always too tired and overworked and struggling to meet your father’s drunken demands to show the love I felt for you, but maybe now, in my last days, we can have peace between us.

  “I gathered from Rudolph’s tone that you were not very friendly with him. Perhaps you have your reasons. He has turned into a cold man although a thoughtful one. If you do not wish to see him, I could let you know when he is out of the house, which happens more and more often, for days on end, and you and I could visit with each other undisturbed. Kiss my grandson for me. Your loving Mother.”

  Holy God, he thought, voices from the tomb.

  He sat there, holding the letter, staring into space, not hearing his wife scolding the kid in the kitchen, thinking of the years over the bakery, years when he had been more thoroughly exiled although he lived in the same house than when he had been sent away and told never to show his face again. Maybe he would go to visit the old lady, listen to the complaints, so late in coming, about her beloved Rudolph, her fair-haired boy.

&n
bsp; He would borrow a car from Schultzy and ride her over to church, that’s what he would do. Let the whole goddamn family see how wrong they were about him.

  II

  Mr. McKenna went out of the hotel room, aldermanic, benign, ex-cop on pension now pursuing private crime, having taken the report from a neat, black-seal briefcase and laid it on Rudolph’s desk. “I am quite certain this will provide all the information you need about the individual in question,” Mr. McKenna had said, kindly, plump, rubbing his bald head, his sober, gray-felt hat, neatly rimmed, on the desk beside him. “Actually, the investigation was comparatively simple, and unusually short for such complete results.” There had been a note of regret in Mr. McKenna’s voice at Willie’s artless simplicity, which had required so little time, so little professional guile to investigate. “I think the wife will find that any competent lawyer can get her a divorce with no difficulty under the laws of the State of New York dealing with adultery. She is very clearly the injured party, very clearly indeed.”

  Rudolph looked at the neatly typed report with distaste. Tapping telephone wires, it seemed, was as easy as buying a loaf of bread. For five dollars, hotel clerks would allow you to attach a microphone to a wall. Secretaries would fish out torn love letters from waste baskets and piece them together carefully for the price of a dinner. Old girls, now rejected, would quote chapter and verse. Police files were open, secret testimony before committees was available, nothing was unpleasant enough to be disbelieved. Communication, despite what poets were saying at the moment, was rife.