Go Naked In The World

by Chamales, Tom T. ;

  and there in the bush shaking with fear was your sister Yvonne black-eyed so skinny and small

  how good was her arm upon your arm how wet her tears against your cheek for you how full was her fright so full for one so skinny and small

  and Mary’s kind voice and gentle hand

  Come Nick we’ll fix your cuts and bathe your face

  then we should have some cake

  and then the tears began to really well

  and once inside you did not think that Yvonne was alone in the garden still

  thinking that

  somewhere west was Old Pete’s big lot that he would not sell and would not build on and there were buildings all around and how Pete would smile every time he passed the lot savouring what it would bring someday.

  on the lot was Old Gus and you have not thought of him since that time you almost died in the snow

  Gus would be seventy now and Nick remembered the garden on the lot and the old shack and Gus’s three goats which the alderman made him deodorize

  always when you went to visit him in the spring or summer or fall he would be out in the garden for him things would grow and he had told you it was due partly to the thought you had when you planted that really made things grow and you did not understand

  he was tall and lean and his hair almost shaved was gray and black and he had the homeliest most beautiful face you had ever seen and the softest voice and could not be disturbed and looked so much taller than he was slightly hunched over with long gangling arms it was a holy face you had decided once

  for some reason he was one relative that Old Pete could not get to work and he lived on the lot and in the cafes in Greektown they said that he could spell the evil eye and forecast the future and that Old Pete never made a deal without consulting him

  Old Pete’s mother who was eighty-eight when she came to this country and ninety-five when she died always laughing always smiling always spitting good-luck on Nick she had told of Gus and how when Gus was young in their town of Verdamah he would not work but tended the sheep in the hills and forests, he was huge then over two hundred forty pounds and his strength was legend and he had a beard and would spend all day reading books that they did not understand sometimes would not eat for days and finally went away to Mount Athos and did not come back for a year and how different serene different he was when he came back and gaunt thin and he never read any more he had a way with animals that was the talk of all the countryside and the people of the valley feared his strange powers and once had tried to hang him and when the time came nobody would

  later he came to America and for a while worked in the grape vineyards in California and Old Pete had wanted him for a watchdog in his club but he would not work so he went and built a shack on Old Pete’s lot which was a prairie lot almost then and made his garden and got his goats and the buildings sprung up around him just like Old Pete knew that they would but Gus stayed on and the buildings did not seem to bother him and he went to Lincoln Park and picked dandelion greens and cooked them in a way that nobody else could and Old Pete would talk for days before the dandelion feast that Gus was soon to have and sometimes Old Pete would take Nick and they would eat the dandelions in the shack and drink the juice and Gus would sing laments from the Grecian hills and play his zither and Old Pete would cry

  there was much publicity when the people in the buildings complained of the goats and the alderman took out an injunction against Gus And Old Pete had the tune of his life reading about it in the papers and for some reason used his influence down at City Hall so that Gus was allowed to keep his goats

  it was the talk of the town and Pierro had thought it was disgraceful and his mother had a hard time getting him to high school for several days because of his shame

  I must see Gus soon Nick thought and maybe he will understand some of the things I feel but cannot say or express

  Gus had known how I felt about the war he was the only one it seemed and remember how when I said goodbye he had never even taken my hand only smiled that sweet sad smile and said I will see you soon and you will be older and wiser but remember you will not be as clean or as young anymore and do not expect to be

  that was all

  Goodbye you said and he had only smiled and as you drove away you saw him watching you and he was petting one of the goats

  thinking that

  there back there behind him in the city was the opera house and Mary his mother taking him for the first time in the rain on a Saturday afternoon

  how the kids had given it to you that week when they heard you were going to the opera

  remember you had to leave the gang after the morning football game and were not able to go to the drugstore with them

  and how embarrassed you were when the time came and ran so quickly towards the car that you fell and skinned your knee and ripped your new knickers

  but Mary said you were going anyhow you would learn to appreciate the good things that her grandfather who had fought in the Civil War and died at Chickamauga appreciated you were and-don’t-forget-it sixth generation American on her side

  how different was the opera than you had thought how beautiful and how sad it had made you want to cry but too ashamed to cry as small as you were you seemed to understand and later remember taking Ellen on her fifteenth birthday and how later you listened to the records and read the libretto to Tosca aloud to each other and that it was not until later during the war that you finally knew what the words to that aria you loved so meant

  where were you when you learned what the words meant

  Greece or Italy

  but that made no difference now

  there was snow he remembered hills and snow and he had remembered the hero about to be shot singing to Tosca ‘My dream of love is destroyed forever’

  ‘And I must die despairing

  And I must die despairing

  How cruel is death

  O life was never sweeter

  Never sweeter’

  In the hills and the snow you learned how sweet it was

  “What are thinking about?” Nora asked.

  He could see the floodlights on the Edgewater Beach now. “An opera,” he said.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Yes,” he said. He was driving very slowly, feeling strangely peaceful, feeling the summer wind to his face, hoping she would not speak again for a while.

  She did not. And they drove far out past all the familiar places and ate steak in a fine little restaurant that was more like a home than a restaurant far out in the woods near Lake Forest. They decided that when they were done they would go to a place out west of Wilmette where he and his friends had gathered in those, the frantic days before the war to have a drink there and maybe say hello to Louie the bartender who was his friend. She thought that would be fine, and they were m no hurry. They took their time, as if they were on a planned holiday, knowing but not saying that shortly they would catch up with the world again. You were so much a part of this world really that you almost felt guilty leaving it for a while. So they drank well, and did not feel that guilt for this while.

  In Peru, Indiana at the same moment the world was moving on. Old Pete Stratton and George and Charlie Stratos were sitting in the back booth of an old high ceilinged restaurant that had a long counter and mahogany-stained seats on the counter chairs and mahogany-stained booths and coat racks and an old tiled floor. It was a clean place with very bright lights and you could tell by the neatness of the waitresses and the neat clean way the display cases were that it was well run.

  The place belonged to Alex Nestos who was a distant relative of the Stratos brothers. Alex came from a town not far from Old Pete’s home town of Verdamah. He had had this restaurant in Peru for over twenty years and owned several buildings in the town, and his nephew managed the theatres for Interstate in Peru. Alex was fifty years old and partially bald and heavy set with massive hairy forearms. His wife worked the kitchen and his daughter the cash
register. It was a tightly run business.

  The Stratos brothers and Old Pete had been in the back booth for over an hour drinking Turkish coffee, waiting for Alex to return. It was almost ten o’clock and some of the movie crowd had drifted into the restaurant from the early show Alex was a half hour late probably, they deduced, because of the sudden unexpected cloudburst about an hour before. Finally he came in and hollered out to the kitchen. His squat aproned peasant wife silently brought him some coffee and silently went back to her work.

  “Well?” Charlie Stratos the elder asked, still looking worried and tired and unkempt with the same imitation flannel suit and his shirt collar bent up outside his coat lapels. “Did you see him?”

  He was speaking of the union man Raker.

  “I saw him,” Alex said. “He wants another G under the table to call off the strike.” Alex Nestos always called a thousand a G, a hundred a C. He had never lived in Chicago and assumed that was the way the smart boys there spoke of various denominations.

  “The sonofabitch,” Old Pete rendered another benediction.

  “You think he means it,” Charlie Stratos said dryly, unsmilingly, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief.

  “I don’t think he means it,” George Stratos the younger said.

  “I didn’t ask you, George,” Charlie said, irritated. “Do you think he means it, Alex?”

  Alex thought about it for a moment: “He means it. He’ll strike the projector operators if you don’t come across. What has he got to lose? The dirty bastard,” Alex said meaningfully. “He’ll strike them and if you get someone in there to take their place he’ll put stink bombs in your theatres. And picket you. And get the city fathers up against you because you’re big city people.”

  “I knew we should have watched out for that guy,” Old Pete said.

  “You know, Pete,” Charlie the Elder said, “if we give in to this fellow he’ll want a raise in every one of our territories. You know that can run into a hell of a lot of money, Pete.”

  Pete’s right fist was clenched now and he was tapping the table. “What do you have in mind, Charlie?”

  “What do you think we ought to do?” George asked Alex.

  “I think we ought to hit him in the head, that’s what I think. That’s the only way to take care of a guy like that.”

  Old Pete coughed and looked off toward the kitchen as if he hadn’t heard and took out a ten cent cigar and began to unpeel the wrapper. He had on a dark cheap suit, his traveling suit. The one he always wore to the small towns so that the local folks wouldn’t get suspicious of him, wouldn’t think he was taking any real money out of their towns. He always got a kind of sly satisfaction from putting on the suit. Like a little boy who had pulled a quickie of some sort.

  “I got some friends out at the circus that could use a couple of C notes.”

  George Stratos the younger finally spoke. “I don’t like this kind of business.”

  “I gotta go to the toilet,” Old Pete said, and got up and left.

  “There’s a fellow coming in here in a little while. Comes in every night. I give him some work clean up around my buildings,” Alex said. “A big-guy. A roustabout. Use to be a strongman. He don’t like Raker either. I think we can do some business.”

  “He’ll be careful won’t he, Alex?” Charlie asked. “You know we got a big business to protect. God knows I don’t like this kind of thing. But what you gonna do with a fellow like that. You don’t do it first, he does it to you,” Charlie said. He had his glasses off now and was wiping his eyes with his fingers. The eyes were tired and glazed and he strained for a vision of Alex as he spoke.

  “You want to get some air?” Charlie the Elder said to George. “Maybe you an’ Old Pete want to get some air.”

  “That’s him coming in the door now,” Alex said.

  “Jesus Christ,” George Stratos the younger said. The man was at least six foot eight and must have weighed two seventy-five. He had a cauliflower ear and a smashed-in nose and his head was shaven and his arms hung down past his knees and he limped slightly with a game right leg.

  “Nice boy,” Alex said, grinning, “Uh?”

  “I’ll wait for Old Pete,” George the younger said. And walked towards the men’s room.

  “You sure he knows what he’s doing,” Charlie Stratos said to Alex.

  “He’s all right. I tell you, Charlie, he’s all right.”

  “All right, Alex. We’ll take care of you, too.”

  “Forget it, Charlie,” Alex said. “Maybe you get a little side deal sometime, you need cash. I’ll come in for a couple of G’s.”

  “I’ll keep you in mind, Alex. Next time we make a move. I’ll keep you in mind.”

  “You got a big business there, Charlie.”

  “We work hard. I’m tired, Alex. You know Georgie’s young and hasn’t had much experience. And Old Pete he’s getting up in years. He’s good with the money but he can’t go like he used to. I gotta do more all the time. And this hayfever kills me.”

  “Well, his kid should be coming along soon. That kid might be some help,” Alex said.

  “Yeah. If Old Pete would leave him alone. Nice kid.”

  “I like Nick. My daughter likes Nick too,” Alex said.

  “So does mine,” Charlie said. “Me and Pete we talked about it a couple of times. Maybe we fix the kids up. Then we really got something for the business.”

  “I hear the kid’s hard to handle.”

  “All kids are nowadays, Alex.”

  “Old Pete’s nephew, he some smart kid, I hear. Hard to handle, too. Too much education, I hear.”

  Charlie Stratos put his glasses back on and wiped his slightly pockmarked face with his crumpled handkerchief.

  “I don’t know the nephew very well. He got hurt in the war. He’s back now.”

  “Should I bring my friend over?” Alex asked. “You want to meet him?”

  “I’ll let you handle it, Alex. We’re blood. I can trust my own blood to handle it. Can’t I?”

  “You know me, Charlie.”

  “You think you might ask Raker once more?” George asked.

  “I asked him already.”

  “Ask him once more, eh?”

  “If you say so, Charlie.”

  “You want to take a walk?” Charlie asked. “We pick up Old Pete and George, maybe walk by the theatres.”

  “I better talk a little business with my friend.”

  “We leave early tomorrow,” Charlie said. “Now we know you take care things here. We leave early.”

  “I’ll see my friend for a minute and then I take a little walk and say good-bye to the boys. Let me tell my friend to wait.”

  “All right, Alex. A check, huh.”

  “No check,” Alex said. “On me, on Alex tonight.”

  “Thanks,” Charlie said dryly and unsmilingly, wiping his face once more with the crumpled handkerchief. “I won’t forget this, Alex. You’re my blood.”

  “Thanks,” Alex said. And left and went over to the counter where the giant sat.

  Later the Stratos and Old Pete had a meeting up in Old Pete’s hotel room.

  “You think Alex can handle this fellow?” Old Pete asked.

  “Alex is very. smart,” Charlie said. “He got a lot of property working with the sheriff on the auction sales. Alex will handle it all right.”

  “I been thinking how we can get rid of that kid in Youngstown,” Old Pete said.

  “We gotta be careful with that kid,” Charlie said.

  “He’s a crazy kid,” George the younger said.

  They had purchased five theatres from the boy’s father and part of the deal was that they retain his son, Jerry Percy, as regional manager for the Youngstown area. The father had more theatres that Interstate was interested in purchasing. But the son drank a lot and did not tend to business and they were trying to get rid of him without offending the father.

  “I figured it all out,” Old Pete s
aid. “All we have to do is move the regional offices. The kid was born and raised in Youngstown. He’s a big shot there and he won’t want to move. We assume, naturally, that he will move. Then he’ll tell us he doesn’t want to. And we’ll try and get him to move. Even ask his father to help get the kid to move. We move the regional office to maybe Muncie. The kid won’t move, I tell you. I figured it out.”

  “I think you’re right,” Charlie Stratos said dryly. “That’s a hell of an idea, Pete. That kid won’t move.”

  “Wonderful, Mr. Stratton,” George the younger said. Charlie was always fascinated by Pete. Like a proud son, he was always awed when Pete came up with something clever or cunning.

  “The old man may even get sore at the kid, if he won’t move,” George the younger added.

  “I don’t think so, George,” Old Pete said. “They’re Jews. Jews, they stick together. That old man is sorry for that kid. Cause the kid killed one of his own kids backing the car out of the driveway. Young Percy was sober too. I kinda feel sorry for the kid myself. But we can’t let him ruin the business. What the hell the kid’s got all he’ll ever need. The old man can’t live much longer. And he’s the only son. He’s got plenty.”

  “I’m tired,” Charlie said. “We start around six? all right?”

  “We stop someplace for the coffee. We get out of here early, all right,” Old Pete said.

  “I’ll wake you, Mr. Stratton,” young George said.

  “I’ll be up,” Old Pete said.

  George would ask Old Pete on almost every trip if he could wake him, but Old Pete was always the first one up.

  George and Charlie said goodnight and left. Old Pete undressed, and took an ice cold bath. Faced the East. Crossed himself Orthodox fashion. Prayed. Crossed himself again. And climbed into bed. It had been a long drive and a long day for an old man. He was asleep in a few moments.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE name of the place where Nick and his friends used to meet in those urgent days before the war was called Los Caballeros. It was not a Spanish type place however. It was west of the North Shore on Highway 41; the express-road between Chicago and Milwaukee. It was run by an ex radio announcer and catered mostly to the upper strata of suburbanites and to certain society people and to certain others who were not too upper or too society but were attracted by the pleasant, informal atmosphere.