“What’s the idea of that?” Tame lawyers, tame psychologists, tame muscle-men. Bastards.
“What you s’pose? They get all the colored boys in there, and then they stir up the white boys, and pretty soon they all messing around with each other and forget all about long hours and short pay.”
Stan was only half listening. He crawled into the corner next to the Negro and sat down, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Hey, bud, you wouldn’t happen to have a drink in your pocket, would you?”
“Hell, no. All I got is four bits and this bag of makings. Traveling fast and light.”
Four bits. Ten shots of nickel whisky.
The Great Stanton ran his hands over his hair.
“My friend, I owe you a great debt for saving my life.”
“You don’t owe me nothing, mister. What you expect me to do? Let you slide under and make hamburg steak out of yourself? You forget all about it.”
Stan swallowed the cottony saliva in his mouth and tried again. “My friend, my ancestors were Scotch, and the Scotch are known to possess a strange faculty. It used to be called second sight. Out of gratitude, I want to tell you what I see in the future about your life. I may be able to save you many trials and misfortunes.”
His companion chuckled. “You better save that second sight. Get it to tell you when you going to miss nailing a freight.”
“Ah, but you see, my friend, it led me to the very car where I would find assistance. I knew you were in this car and would help me.”
“Mister, you ought to play the races and get rich.”
“Tell me this—I get a decided impression that you have a scar on one knee. Isn’t that so?”
The boy laughed again. “Sure, I got scars on both my knees. I got scars on my ass, too. Anybody got scars all over him, he ever done any work. I been working since I could walk. I was pulling bugs off potato plants, time I quit messing my britches.”
Stan took a deep breath. He couldn’t let this wisenheimer townie crawl all over him.
“My dear friend, how often in your life, when things looked bad, have you thought of committing suicide?”
“Man, you sure got it bad. Everybody think they like to die sometime—only they always wants to be hanging around afterwards, watching all the moaning and grieving they folks going to do, seeing them laid out dead. They don’t want to die. They just want folks to do a little crying and hollering over ’em. I was working on a road gang once and the captain like to knock me clean out of my skin. He keep busting me alongside the head whether I raise any hell or not—just for fun. But I didn’t want to kill myself. I wanted to get loose. And I got loose, and here I am—sitting here. But that captain get his brains mashed out with a shovel a couple months later by a big crazy fellow, worked right next to me on the chain. Now that captain’s dead and I ain’t mourning.”
A fear without a form or a name was squirming inside Stanton Carlisle. Death and stories of death or brutality burrowed under his skin like ticks and set up an infection that worked through him to his brain and festered in it.
He forced his mind back to the reading. “Let me tell you this, friend: I see your future unrolling like thread from a spool. The pattern of your days ahead. I see men—a crowd of men—threatening you, asking questions. But I see another man, older than yourself, who will do you a good turn.”
The Negro stood up and then squatted on his haunches to absorb the vibration of the car. “Mister, you must of been a fortuneteller sometime. You talk just like ’em. Why don’t you relax yourself? You last a lot longer, I’m telling you.”
The white hobo jumped to his feet and lurched over to the open door, bracing his hand against the wall of the car and staring out across the countryside. They roared over a concrete bridge; a river flashed golden in the moonlight and was gone.
“You better stand back a little, son. You go grabbing scenery that way and somebody spot you if we pass a jerk stop. They phone on ahead, and when she slow down you got the bulls standing there with oak towels in their hands, all ready to rub you down.”
Stan turned savagely. “Listen, kid, you got everything figured out so close. What sense does it all make? What sort of God would put us here in this goddamned, stinking slaughterhouse of a world? Some guy that likes to tear the wings off flies? What use is there in living and starving and fighting the next guy for a full belly? It’s a nut house. And the biggest loonies are at the top.”
The Negro’s voice was softer. “Now you talking, brother. You let all that crap alone and come over here and talk. We got a long run ahead of us and ain’t no use trying to crap each other up.”
Dully Stan left the doorway and crumpled into the corner. He wanted to shout out, to cry, to feel Lilith’s mouth again, her breasts against him. Oh, Jesus, there I go. God damn her, the lying, double-crossing bitch. They’re all alike. But Molly, the dumb little tomato. Quickly he wanted her. Then disgust mounted—she would leech on to him and drain the life out of him. Dull, oh, Christ, and stupid. Oh, Jesus … Mother. Mark Humphries, God damn his soul to hell, the thieving bastard. Mother … the picnic …
The Negro was speaking again and the words filtered through. “…take on like that. Why don’t you tell me what you moaning about? You never going to see me again. Don’t make no difference to me what you done. I mind my own business. But you’ll feel better a hundred per cent, get it off your mind.”
The prying bastard. Let me alone … He heard his own voice say, “Stars. Millions of them. Space, reaching out into nothing. No end to it. The rotten, senseless, useless life we get jerked into and jerked out of, and it’s nothing but whoring and filth from start to finish.”
“What’s the matter with having a little poontang? Nothing dirty about that, ’cept in a crib you likely get crabs or a dose. Ain’t anything dirty about it unless you feels dirty in your mind. Gal start whoring so as to get loose from cotton-chopping or standing on their feet ten, eleven hours. You can’t blame no gal for laying it on the line for money. On her back she can rest.”
Stan’s torrent of despair had dried up. For a second he could draw breath—the weight seemed to have been lifted from his chest.
“But the purpose back of it all—why are we put here?”
“Way I look at it, we ain’t put. We growed.”
“But what started the whole stinking mess?”
“Didn’t have to start. It’s always been doing business. People ask me: how this world get made without God make it? I ask ’em right back: who make God? They say he don’t need making; he always been there. I say: well then, why you got to go bringing him in at all? Old world’s always been there, too. That’s good enough for me. They ask me: how about sin? Who put all the sin and wickedness and cussedness in the world? I say: who put the boll weevil? He growed. Well, mean people grow where the growing’s good for ’em—same as the boll weevil.”
Stan was trying to listen. When he spoke his voice was thick and flat. “It’s a hell of a world. A few at the top got all the dough. To get yours you got to pry ’em loose from some of it. And then they turn around and knock your teeth out for doing just what they did.”
The Negro sighed and offered Stan the tobacco, then made himself another cigarette. “You said it, brother. You said it. Only they ain’t going have it forever. Someday people going to get smart and mad, same time. You can’t get nothing in this world by yourself.”
Stan smoked, watching the gray thread sail toward the door and whip off into the night. “You sound like a labor agitator.”
This time the Negro laughed aloud. “God’s sake, man, labor don’t need agitation. You can’t agitate people when they’s treated right. Labor don’t need stirring up. It need squeezing together.”
“You think they’ve got sense enough to do it?”
“They got to do it. I know.”
“Oh. You know.”
The lad in denims was silent for a moment, thinking. “Looky here—you plant four grains of corn to a hill. How y
ou know one going to come up? Well, the working people, black and white—their brains growing just like corn in the hill.”
The freight was slowing.
God, let me get out of here … this damn, slap-happy darkie, whistling in the lion’s den. And Grindle … every second, moving closer to the fort …
“Hey, watch yourself, son. She’s still traveling.”
The train lost speed quickly. It was stopping. Stan jumped to the ground and the Negro followed, looking left and right. “This ain’t good. Got no business stopping here. Oh—oh—it’s a frisk.”
At either end of the train, lights appeared, brakemen walking the tops carrying lanterns; flashlights of railroad bulls playing along the body rods and into open boxcars.
The young hobo said, “Something funny—this division ain’t never been hostile before. And they frisking from both ends at once …”
On the other side of the freight a train whistled in, hissing, glowing, the red blaze of the engine shining under the boxcar and throwing the hoboes’ shadows across the cinders ahead of them.
“Hey, son, let’s try and jump that passenger job. You a fast rambler?”
The Rev. Carlisle shook his head. The furies were drawing close, Anderson’s web was tangling him. This was the end of it. Dully he clambered back into the boxcar and sank down into a corner, burying his face in his bent elbow, while with hoarse voices and a stamp of feet the furies moved in …
“Hey, bo—” The whisper through the door barely penetrated. “Come on—let’s nail that rattler. We make better time too.”
Silence.
“So long, boy. Take it easy.”
Doom had stepped onto the roof; then a light stabbed into the car, searching the corners. Oh, Jesus, this is it—this is it.
“Come on, you bastard, unload. And get your hands up.”
He stood, blinking in the glare of the flashlight, and raised his arms.
“Come on, hit the grit!”
Stan stumbled to the door and sat down, sliding his feet into darkness. A big hand gripped his arm and jerked him out.
From the top of the car the head-end shack peered over, holding his brake club under one arm. “You got him?”
A voice behind the flashlight said, “I got one. But he ain’t no coon. Way we got the tip, the guy was a coon.”
The brakeman above them signaled with his lantern and from the dark came the chug of a gasoline-driven handcar. It sped up and Stan could see that it was crowded with men—dark clothes—it was no track gang. When it stopped the men piled off and hurried across the rails.
“Where is he? On the freight? Who’s shaking down the rattler?”
“We got boys frisking the rattler, don’t worry.”
“But we got it from Anderson …”
This is it. This is it. This is it.
“… that the guy was colored.” One of the newcomers came closer and brought out a flashlight of his own. “What’s that in your pocket, bud?”
Stanton Carlisle tried to speak but his mouth was gritty.
“Keep your hands up. Wait a minute. This isn’t a weapon. It’s a Bible.”
His lungs loosened; he could draw half a breath. “Brother, you hold in your hand the most powerful weapon in the world—”
“Drop it!” Big Hand shouted. “Maybe it’s a pineapple made to look like a Bible.”
The other voice was cool. “It’s just a Bible.” He turned to the white hobo. “We’re looking for a colored lad. We know he boarded this train. If you can give us information which might lead to his arrest, you would be serving the forces of justice. And there might be something in it for you.”
Justice. Something in it could mean folding money. Justice. A buck—ten cans of alky … justice. White-stubble justice … a buck—twenty shots … oh, frig them with their razorstrops, their brake clubs…
He opened his eyes wide, staring straight ahead in the light-beam. “Brother, I met a colored brother-in-God when I was waiting to nail this job. I tried to bring him to Jesus, but he wouldn’t listen to the Word. I gave him my last tract—”
“Come on, parson, where did he go? Was he riding here in the car with you?”
“Brother, this colored brother-in-God nailed her somewhere up at the head-end. I was hoping we could ride together so I could tell him about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who died for our sins. I’ve rode from coast-to-coast a dozen times, bringing men to Christ. I’ve brought only a couple thousand so far …”
“Okay, parson, give Jesus a rest. We’re looking for a god-damned nigger Red. You saw him grab her up front? Come on, guys, let’s spread out. He’s here someplace …”
The man with big hands stayed with Stanton while the others swarmed over the freight, swung between the cars and moved off into the darkness. The Rev. Carlisle had slipped into a low mutter which the yard dick made out to be a sermon, addressed either to an invisible congregation or to the air. The goddamned Holy Joe had thrown them off; now the coon had a chance of getting clear.
At last the freight whistled, couplings started and clanked, and it groaned off. Beyond it the passenger train, sleek and dark, waited while flashlights sprayed into the blinds, the side boxes of the diner, and along the tops.
Then it too began to move. As the club car slid past, Stan glimpsed through long windows a waiter in a white coat. He was uncapping a bottle while an arm in a tweed coat held a glass of ice.
A drink. Good Christ, a drink. Could I put the bite on this bull? Better not try it, no time to build it.
The railroad detective spat between his teeth. “Look here, parson, I’m going to give you a break. I ought to send you over. But you’d probably have the whole damn jail yelling hymns. Come on, crumb, take the breeze.”
The big hands turned Stan around and pushed; he stumbled over tracks and up an embankment. In the distance the light of a farmhouse glowed. A drink. Oh, Jesus—
The passenger flyer picked up speed. In the club car a wrist shot from a tweed sleeve, revealing a wrist watch. Ten minutes’ delay! Confound it, the only way to travel was by plane.
Under the club car, squeezed into a forest of steel springs, axles, brake rods and wheels, a man lay hidden. As the rattler gained speed, Frederick Douglass Scott, son of a Baptist minister, grandson of a slave, shifted his position to get a better purchase as he rolled on toward the North and the fort with its double fence of charged wire.
Shoulders braced against the truck frame, feet against the opposite side, he balanced his body on an inch-thick brake rod which bent under him. Inches below, the roadbed raced by, switches clawing up at him as the car pounded past them. The truck hammered and bucked. A stream of glowing coals, thrown down by the engine, blew over him and he fought them with his free hand, beating at the smoldering denim, while the train thundered on; north, north, north.
A specter was haunting Grindle. It was a specter in overalls.
CARD XX
Death
wears dark armor; beside his horse kneel priests and children and kings.
THE PITCHMAN rounded a corner, looking both ways down the main street for the cop, and then slid into the darkened vestibule of the bank building. If the rain held off he might get a break at that. The movie theater was about to let out; fellows would be coming out with their girls.
As the first of the crowd drifted past him he drew a handful of gaudy envelopes from a large pocket inside his coat and fanned them in his left hand so that the brightly printed zodiac circle and the symbols stood out, a different color for each sign.
He ran his free hand once over his hair and took a breath. His voice was hoarse; he couldn’t get it much above a whisper. “My friends if you’ll just step this way for a single moment you may find that you have taken a step which will add to your health happiness and prosperity for the rest of your lives …”
One couple stopped and he spoke directly to them. “I wonder if the young lady would mind telling me her birth date it costs you nothing folks because the
first astrological chart this evening will be given away absolutely free of charge …”
The young fellow said, “Come on.” They walked on past. The goddamned townies.
Need a drink. Jesus, I’ve got to pitch. I got to unload five of them.
“Here you are folks everybody wants to know what the future holds in store come in a little closer folks and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do I’m going to give each and every one of you a personal reading get your astronomical forecast which shows your lucky numbers, days of the month and tells you how to determine the right person for you to marry whether you’ve got anybody in mind or not …”
They moved by him, some staring, some laughing, none stopping.
Hideous. Their faces suddenly became distorted, like caricatures of human faces. They seemed to be pushed out of shape. Some of them looked like animals, some like embryo chicks when you break an egg that is half incubated. Their heads bobbed on necks like stalks and he waited for their eyes to drop out and bounce on the sidewalk.
The pitchman started to laugh. It was a chuckle, bubbling up inside of him at first, and then it split open and he laughed, screaming and stamping his foot.
A crowd began to knot around him. He stopped laughing and forced out the words. “Here you are folks while they last.” The laugh was fighting inside of him, tearing at his throat. “A complete astrological reading giving your birthstones, lucky numbers.” The laugh was hammering to get out. It was like a dog tied to the leg of a workbench, fighting to get free of a rope. Here it came. “Whah, whah, whah, whah! Hooooooooooooo!”
He beat the handful of horoscopes against his thigh, leaning his other hand against the stone lintel of the vestibule. The crowd was giggling at him or with him, some wondering when he was going to stop suddenly and try to sell them something.
One woman said, “Isn’t it disgusting! And right in the doorway of the bank! It’s indecent.”
The pitchman heard her and this time he sat down limply on the marble steps, letting the horoscopes scatter around him, holding his belly as he laughed.
Nightmare Alley Page 28