The Big Both Ways

by John Straley

  “They got a tall one with a fancy hat?” Slip asked, thinking of the antsy man at the rundown house with the crying babies.

  “Hell, son, they’re all big. Ben Avery’s the one you got to watch out for. He’s killed his share of hoboes he thought was Reds. Killed ’em and let them die in the weeds.”

  “You’re making this up now.” Slip closed his eyes and breathed in the mint-scented soap. He relaxed under the touch of the razor, easing into what could only be a preposterous barber’s lie.

  “The hell I am,” Andy said, as he wiped the soap on the towel draped over his shoulder. “You get mixed up with Avery?”

  “I don’t know. Got mixed up with Ellie Hobbes, though. That’s for certain.”

  “Ah, criminy,” Andy said. “I’d just blow town right now. You can’t handle Ben Avery’s kind of trouble.”

  “I tell you, Andy, I just got the wrong ride.”

  “I can believe that.”

  “I’d love to blow town but she’s got all my money for the farm. She’s got everything I’ve ever saved.”

  Andy nodded, wiping the razor with a towel. “You didn’t give it to her, did you? ’Cause I’m just saying that was one stupid …”

  “No, she took it.”

  “Strong-armed you, did she?” Andy was smiling as he lifted the tip of Slip’s nose and moved the razor to his lip.

  “I got an address and a time for a meeting. I’ve got some paper she wants. I got a gun. You want to come with me to the meeting and get the money? We can grab it and be up over the mountains before sunup.”

  “I ain’t going to no Red meeting. I don’t care about the oppressed masses. I’m hoping to be a proud member of the ruling class if my aunt ever signs this shop over to me.”

  “So you’re not throwing in with me?” Slip asked, not really surprised but disappointed nonetheless.

  “Look at me, partner. I’m a business owner. I got soft hands now and a taste for the good life. I am not going to milk some pig on the east side.” He chuckled and gestured around his shop—the one broken barber’s chair, the sink, a coal stove, a few soft chairs for waiting customers, and a small cracked mirror—as if it were a newly discovered paradise.

  Slip tried halfheartedly to change his friend’s mind, but didn’t have the energy to see it through. He promised he would see him again before he left town, and Andy shook his hand. Slip tried to pay for the shave but Andy waved him off, and Slippery stepped out into the new Seattle morning. There was a breeze coming from the north with streaky clouds in a gray sky and across the Sound he could see whitecaps dotting the water.

  He walked the waterfront for most of the day, trying to decide what to do. He had to go and get his money. But he knew that he was stepping into a hornet’s nest if he did. There was no good luck coming from this. He held the revolver in his pocket and thought of throwing it off a wharf but he didn’t. It might come in useful if someone tried to crack his skull, though he had never fired a pistol and wasn’t sure he could, even in anger.

  Around sunset he bought a glass of beer and helped himself to two free sandwiches on the back sideboard of a crowded bar. They were gray roast beef and mustard on stiff white bread. He started back for a third but the Irish bartender with a mustache like John L. Sullivan’s gave him the thumb and told him to beat it.

  Slip walked around looking for the meetinghouse for at least an hour. He ended up at the same sagging house he had visited the day before. But now there were six guys hanging out on the corner. The evening was cooling down with a damp breeze blowing through. The men were shuffling from one foot to the other while sharing a bag of tobacco. A couple of them had newspapers stuffed inside their suit coats for insulation. The house looked like it had once been a storefront. The big front window had been filled in with smaller window frames but none of the windows matched up. The whole place sagged a little like a rotten jack-o’-lantern.

  “I’m here for the meeting,” Slip said, nodding to them. One of the men offered him a smoke but he declined. The men said nothing. They didn’t exchange names but kept stamping their feet, trying to avoid each other’s stare.

  Finally a nervous young man came walking up the sidewalk. He was tiny with a wiry build. He walked quickly, lifting his knees as if the pavement were red hot.

  “Sorry to be late,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I’ll let us in. I’ll put some coffee on, then maybe I’ll find some sinkers to go with it.” He lunged up the front steps, unlocked the door, and went inside.

  There were maybe ten chairs set up in the living room all facing the same direction. There was a piano and a birdcage, and sitting on the couch next to the window was Ellie. The red blotches on her face had darkened into purple bruises.

  Slip walked directly over to her.

  “Hello,” she said, “it’s good to see you.” And she smiled in a way that momentarily made him forget that he was angry with her.

  Slip was about to start talking to her when the young man came in with a plate of doughnuts and the men all pushed toward them. The tiny man stepped back as the bums rushed in around him, and he disappeared behind their shoulders.

  “Got more of these,” he said in his same raspy tenor. “I’ll bring them out when the coffee is ready.” The men shoved the doughnuts into their mouths. Some of them had faces sunken in by hunger. None of them had shaved that morning and none of them looked at any of the flyers laid on the chairs.

  Ellie was turned in her chair and looking out the window to the street.

  “Listen,” Slip said to her, “I want my money back.”

  “All right,” she said softly, “but the meeting is about to start.”

  “I’m not staying for no meeting,” Slip said, looking around.

  Ellie pulled him down into a chair. “Just sit here for a bit. I’m sorry I took your money. I will give it back to you, I promise. I needed you to come here. You’ve got the other paper I gave you?”

  He nodded his head, and she patted him on the leg, stood up, and walked up to the front of the room.

  The men ate as if someone were going to steal the doughnuts from their mouths.

  “We’ll have some coffee in a little bit,” she said softly, flexing her fingers back and forth into a fist. The men looked down at their hands in their laps. One or two looked at Ellie.

  She smiled silently until all the men looked up at her beautiful wrecked face. One old man let out a low whistle. No one else made a sound. Her dull blue eyes began to awaken, as if she had just taken a breath of mountain air.

  “Gentlemen,” she started nervously, “I’m not here to sell you anything. You don’t have to believe a word I have to say and I’m not going to ask you for any donations. If all you get out of this evening are some doughnuts and coffee, then that’s fine with me.”

  Ellie walked back and forth in front of the hungry men. As she walked, she played with her hair nervously. She smoothed the fabric of her clean blue dress down her legs, not looking at any of them.

  “Now, you don’t know me,” she said and then stopped, staring each of them in the eyes. “But I figure that I’d like to get to know you,” and she smiled sweetly.

  “Fine with me,” a man to the left of Slip called out.

  Ellie smiled with as much coy charm as her bottle-blonde hair and bruised face would allow and she didn’t speak for another long moment. The hinges of the folding chairs squeaked and someone cleared his throat.

  Then she looked up at them. “You boys want beefsteaks?” Everyone smiled, and one man with broken-down leather shoes rubbed his hands together and licked his cracked lips. “Well, I can’t afford beefsteak for you boys. I can’t afford these doughnuts. I stole ’em in the first place.”

  “Somebody call the cops!” someone yelled, and everyone laughed.

  “That’s right,” she said, “call the cops. But before they get here, let me ask you something. You boys like this life we got here for ourselves?”

  Then she stopped and looked at the
men shifting in their chairs, her blue eyes burning so hard inside that purple mask that no one wanted to look up at her. “Now come on. It’s easy. Are you happy with what you have now? Do any of you have a house to go home to? Do your kids have plenty to eat?”

  “Yeah, sure,” a guy next to her grumbled, “and an ocean liner to keep it all on.”

  “Well, what’s the matter?” she said, pushing up her sleeves and pacing in front of the room. “I was just looking around and there’s lots of people who have plenty of everything. I’ve been peeking in the windows of those big brick buildings up on Queen Anne and Capitol Hill. I’ve been up in the neighborhoods looking out on the lake, and everybody out there’s got tables just heaped with food. What’s wrong with you men? Are you lazy?”

  “Lazy …” somebody grumbled.

  “ ’Cause that’s what they say. They say you don’t want to work.”

  “Course we want to work,” the grumbler said out loud, and he looked up directly at the woman for the first time.

  “Then you must be picky about what kind of jobs you’d be willing to take.”

  “Phooey,” the grumbler said, and began to stand up.

  “But I think there’s probably a better explanation. Because I’ve also been snooping around the docks today, and I’ve seen the foremen getting bribes to put their friends to work. I’ve seen men working all day long for no more money than one decent meal for himself alone.” The grumbler sat back down. “Yes I’ve been snooping. How else do you think I got this,” and she gestured vaguely toward her face, “this nice eye makeup. How’d you think I come by this? I’m a woman. I’m naturally curious.”

  A laugh went around the room. “I have seen men getting hurt or killed every day and not one thing done for their family except maybe a smoked ham from the front office … and a card from the boss that his secretary signed.”

  She stopped and looked straight at them, “I know you don’t believe this. But I believe in you, men. I believe in you.”

  The room was quiet then. The chairs creaked and men shuffled their feet. A sadness crept into the room.

  “I know that you aren’t lazy. I know you want to work. I know you want a decent life in this country that promises you a decent life every time it fights a war and you have to go off and risk your neck.”

  An old man coughed, filling the awkward silence.

  She paused again until they were all looking directly at her. She seemed bigger now as if their attention made her grow in stature. “You could whip any nation on earth, because you’d be working together. You could march halfway across the world and beat the Germans or the French or just about anybody. And your wives and sisters would be proud and welcome you home with flowers and kisses.” A couple of the men rubbed sore hands on their legs and gulped their coffee without taking their eyes off her.

  “Then how is it we’re here today, broke and alone, eating stolen doughnuts and drinking weak coffee? How’d it come to this?” She looked around, knowing that each man was casting for an answer.

  “I’ll tell you how it came to this. Those people up in those fine houses don’t want you asking for what’s yours. They don’t want you to come together and demand a piece of that good life that they all got.” She paused and looked around and some of them looked down at their feet and nodded to themselves.

  “You deserve a good life. You know that, don’t you?”

  A couple of them muttered.

  “You deserve a good life,” she almost whispered.

  “Just bring out the coffee,” someone said, and the others laughed.

  “It looks like you got what you deserved, lady,” a feeble old tramp called out.

  She looked at him and drew in a deep breath, but instead of launching back into her oratory she spoke with a soft, husky voice as if she were alone with the tramp.

  “There’s a lot we all deserve, isn’t there?” And she looked at him with her blue eyes that seemed to make shadows wherever she looked. “Yes, we all deserve things. Good things … and then bad things,” and again she gestured toward her face. “We’re all probably due payment from both accounts. But aren’t you getting tired of only getting paid for the bad? I know I am.”

  The men shifted in their chairs. The floor creaked under the threadbare carpet, and two of the men took off their hats and stared at the speaker, who looked at them each one by one, and she ended up staring directly into Slip’s eyes and holding him there as if he were floating up out of his chair.

  “Ain’t it about time you got some of those good things you deserve?” She looked at them until they could bear it no more. Then she walked around the room shaking their hands.

  Most of the men stood up and looked around for the food. The little man brought out a coffeepot and some mugs and they gathered around as if standing at a campfire. A couple of them stuffed extra doughnuts into their pockets to be kept in reserve for the revolution.

  Slip looked over and saw two men by the door motioning Ellie over to where they stood. Ellie refused to acknowledge them. Slip moved between the hungry tramps and tried to get her attention but she purposely ignored him now as well. Finally she handed the coffeepot back to the little nervous man, and walked toward the men by the door.

  They were both several heads taller than she was, with wide shoulders, and one had a long, crooked nose that he aimed as if sighting down a barrel. Then he pointed his finger in her face. He appeared to be speaking slowly and urgently. Slip could not hear the words until one of them stepped back suddenly and said, “Fine, then!” And both the big men walked out the door.

  Ellie walked slowly back toward Slip. Her hands were nervous once again, tugging at her clothes, and she seemed to have shrunken back to size.

  “That wasn’t so good,” she said.

  “Who were they? What did they have to say?” Slip asked.

  “They’re nobody. I meant that the speech didn’t go so well.”

  “I’ve got to talk to you,” Slip said to Ellie.

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said softly, putting her hand once again on his lap.

  “I got a friend who says you’re going to get me killed.”

  “Your friend sounds like the nervous type,” Ellie said. “Besides we got bigger troubles,” and she nodded toward the door.

  “You stole my goddamn money, sister.” Slip blew up. “There ain’t no we to this.”

  “I will give you back your two thousand one hundred and twenty three dollars. Trust me. You don’t have anything to worry about,” she said.

  “Why should I trust you?” he asked.

  Ellie was standing by the window holding the curtain back slightly so she could keep one eye out on the street. “That is a good question, and I don’t really know the answer. I just know that you do. I know it because you had plenty of chances to walk away and you didn’t. You do, Jack Wilson. You trust me.”

  “I do not trust you,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster.

  She squeezed his hand again. “We’ll see,” she said.

  Slip felt like shaking the girl in hopes of waking her up, for it struck him that she was acting with an odd formality that he hadn’t seen in her before. It was as if she were aware of someone else’s presence and was consciously putting her best foot forward. Then for the first time, he noticed the birdcage on the piano. Inside the cage was a yellow bird with a crest that stuck up from his head and big red spots on his cheeks. To Slip it was an odd and beautiful sight as if the bird had just finished putting too much rouge on its cheeks. There was a little girl standing on the piano stool and poking her finger into the cage. The girl had long braids and glasses tilted forward on her nose.

  “Hey, Buddy. Hey, Buddy. You want something to eat?” she cooed to him.

  “Annabelle, honey, why don’t you play in your room for a bit longer,” Ellie said.

  “Can I take Buddy with me?”

  “Sure you can, doll,” Ellie said, still keeping her eyes out on the street.
r />   The girl hopped down and took the little round-topped cage with her and disappeared through the door.

  “Oh, my dear.” Ellie whispered, “Excuse me, Mr. Wilson, you still have the gun I gave you?”

  “Yes, I do, and I’m not giving it back.”

  “That’s fine,” she said, and turned away from the window just as someone began pounding at the front door. “I just recommend that you keep it close.”

  Slip didn’t say a word. The pounding continued and the glass window in the door sounded as if it were going to shatter.

  “Is that Avery?” Ellie asked as she walked toward the back of the house.

  Slip looked out the window and saw a man in a gray coat standing on the corner under the streetlight. The two men who had been talking to Ellie by the door were headed back toward the house.

  “How the hell would I know?” Slip called out.

  Ellie was buttoning up her coat and feeling her pockets for something in a hurry. “It’s probably Pierce and Conner. They’re going to want back in. But don’t you let them.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Slip said, sounding more tired than frightened.

  “Back door,” Ellie said and walked out of the room.

  “What about the little girl?” Slip called out.

  “No time.” Ellie was in the little kitchen peeking through the shade pulled over the window above the sink. A loud pounding from the front door shook the room. “They don’t want her. She’ll be fine. It will slow them down, if anything. We’ll come back in a bit and get her.”

  “What do you mean a bit?” Slip stood flat-footed in the living room with his arms folded across his chest.

  “One hour tops.” Ellie had her hand on the back doorknob.

  The pounding on the door stopped. There was a long pause and then there was the creaking sound of two men taking a step backward.

  Then there was a shattering of glass.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Ellie said, as the doorframe began to splinter.

  The frame gave way and Slip was running right behind the blonde. They were out the back door and into a small muddy yard. They ran to the low board fence and pushed through the gate. As they turned up the alley Slip noticed that the streetlight was not on. He turned and thought of going back to the house, but saw shadows of big men wobbling past the shades. When they went into the neighbor’s yard, a dog started barking. They ran out into the next street over.