Go Naked In The World

by Chamales, Tom T. ;

  There were only two things he could do. So he decided to stand there at the bar at Los Caballeros and take it like a man—when she had her fill she’d come around.

  She not only evened the score she tilted the board. Then satisfied and feeling slightly guilty, truthfully slightly shocked by her own viciousness, and slightly disturbed by the guilty, calm, silent way he had taken it, but nevertheless satisfied, and with both of them feeling their drinks, went down to the beach. He didn’t get her home until five in the morning. The lights in her house were on and her father was waiting up in his robe:

  “I told you, Nick, I wanted my daughter home no later than two-thirty,” he said looking at his daughter very suspiciously.

  Nick, thinking quickly, gave him the story that they had gone down to the South Side to hear Lionel Hampton with a group of war buddies who were passing through town. Ellen the Fair verified this in her innocent way, standing there looking very nun-like and very hurt, so hurt that after a while her father began to feel very foolish lecturing to Nick—How could any father be suspicious of a daughter like her?

  So, after the second lecture of this evening, Nick went home. It was daylight. He knew it would be better not to go to sleep at all. He took a cold shower but half an hour later still felt drained, tired. It was a hell of shape to be in, he thought, his first day at the office.

  “You got in kinda late, didn’t you?” Old Pete asked Nick as they settled down on the train.

  “Well, you didn’t want me to make a pass at Pat Rakis, did you? Besides it looks like you and I are going to have a few secrets—woman-wise,” Nick said.

  “Yeah,” Old Pete said. So the bitch told him. So the dirty rotten bitch told him. Well, I’ll fix her. She’d better watch out now or I fix her good. What reason she have to tell him?

  “Well, we’re men, son. We gotta have our secrets just like women.”

  “I understand, Dad,” Nick said.

  Old Pete handed Nick the first part of the paper and kept the sports page for himself. “It’s good we catch this train,” he said. “No stops from Evanston on to the Loop,” he said looking at the paper. “Jesus,” he said as if talking to himself. “Medwick got four for four yesterday. All extra base hits. That’s some ballplayer.”

  When they got down to the office, Old Pete said, “You spend the first couple days in my office with me.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “You just watch me. Listen to the way I handle things. I show you the statements. How to read them. We got a lunch set up today with Laurence Green, the banker. You be especially nice to him, hear. He’s very important to your future.”

  It was a long drawn out day with Old Pete saying every once in a while, “You see how I handled that, kid? Here, take this over to Charlie Stratos’ office and be sure and say, ‘sir’. Show him you got respect. After all, Nick, it don’t cost a dime to show a little respect.”

  Nick acted it out the best he could. He tried to grasp the meanings of the statements that Old Pete showed him but found it very difficult. At end of day, he was very tired and very low.

  He took Pat for a drive that evening. And the night before she left Old Pete gave a dinner for her father and her at the Edgewater and Nick danced with Pat and Yvonne, but mostly with Pat. The next morning Nick and Old Pete drove them to the train and after they had waved them off Old Pete said, “Well, what do you think of her, son?”

  “She’s very sweet, dad. The old man’s pretty much of a drunk, though.”

  “He won’t live long, I tell you. I told him myself if he doesn’t slow down he won’t live long,” Old Pete paused. Then when they were in Old Pete’s office he said, “Nick, I’ve got experience. The only friend you got in this world is the dollar. The Almighty dollar. You got that and you got everything.”

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “You marry that girl, Nick, and you’re set. Set, I tell you.”

  “Marry her!” Nick said. “I hardly know her.”

  “I had a long talk with her father last night. He likes you, Nick. He says you and his daughter get together he put you right in as manager of all his properties down in Atlanta. He’s got eighty-nine pieces of property. Eighty-nine,” he banged his fist down on the table. “He owns the best corners in the town. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime, I tell you. A lifetime.” Down came the fist again.

  “What’s the girl think about all this?” Nick said.

  “She’s crazy about you, kid. She told her father, she’s crazy about you. Any damn fool could see she’s crazy about you. Why you’d be the talk of the town, marrying John Rakis’ daughter. Why when he dies you’d be one of the richest Greeks, if not the richest Greek, in America. We’d be set.”

  ‘We’d’, Nick said to himself. Certainly there was something in this for Old Pete. There had to be.

  “I tell you, son, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. A lifetime.”

  Nick began to think it over. That this might be his opportunity to get out of Chicago, to be free of Old Pete. Have his own money and own place. Christ, if her old man did die maybe he could sell out and go to Florida and retire. Have his own boat and fish and travel when he felt like it.

  Old Pete was fighting not to show his nervousness, waiting for Nick’s answer.

  “Well,” Nick said sensing Old Pete’s anxiety, “getting married is a pretty big step. I’ve got to give it some thought. Some serious thought.”

  Old Pete sat there grim faced but smiling inwardly.

  “Jesus,” Nick said playing it out to the hilt, “I never thought about getting married so soon.”

  “I tell you, son, you marry that girl and you’ll be one of the most respected Greeks in the country. You’ll be somebody. Somebody, I’ll tell you.”

  Somebody, somebody, Nick said to himself staring blankly at the thick pale Moroccan rug which Old Pete had told him at least six times in the last two days hadn’t cost a dime.

  “You just take it easy, think about it,” Old Pete said. “You just think about it and you’ll know what to do. I know you’re no dumbbell. I know that. You’ll be the talk of the town, I tell you.”

  “I think I’ll go have some coffee,” Nick said.

  “Sure, go ahead, kid. But don’t forget the meeting. We got a meeting with the Stratos brothers in a half hour in the board room. Now there’s going to be two Strattons at every board meeting instead of just two Stratos,” Old Pete said proudly. “Two Strattons,” he said movingly. And Nick got up quickly and left.

  Nick’s first board meeting had a profound effect on him. Charlie, the Elder, opened it by informing them that they were now ready to negotiate the purchase of two theatres in a small town outside of Indianapolis.

  “We’re giving them seventy-five hundred for both leases,” Charlie said. “We should only give them five thousand after all the trouble they caused us. But I think the people in the town might get too mad.”

  Nick didn’t understand how they could set their own price and asked Old Pete. Old Pete explained how they had originally gone into the town and offered fourteen thousand for the purchase of the two leases and that they had been refused. The people who owned the theatres owned only the two so they Interstate, told them that if they didn’t sell they would build another theatre in the town. The town, Old Pete explained, was not big enough for three theatres so eventually all three would begin to lose money. The independents, without the cash reserves and credit of Interstate, would eventually go bankrupt and they would pick up the theatres through bankruptcy or if the owners were smart, as they were in this case, and saw that Interstate meant business they would sell out.

  “Well, how come they don’t get fourteen thousand?” Nick had asked.

  “Those bastards put us to. a lot of trouble,” Charlie said. “We had to go in there three or four times and have real estate men looking around for property for us. They still thought we didn’t mean business. So we even bought a building.”

  “A damn good buy we got on
that building, too,” Old Pete said.

  “Then we go to a contractor, even have plans drawn up to build a theatre in this building we buy,” Charlie said. “Then they knew we meant business. Now they can pay us for the trouble they put us to. How do you think we build up this business, kid?”

  “Business,” Nick had said. “Business. For Christ sake that’s like hijacking.” He was really very thrown and asked to be excused and left right away and went home.

  Old Pete was the first to laugh when he had gone. “I don’t understand these kids,” he laughed. “They go over there and shoot people up and it doesn’t bother them. Then a little good hard business and they get like they want to throw up.”

  They all laughed.

  “What the hell does he think business is?” Old Pete said.

  “He’ll catch on,” George the younger said.

  “Well, he didn’t get the screwings we got when we were kids,” Charlie said in Greek, so that Miss Keith, who was taking the transcript, wouldn’t put it down. “He’ll be all right.”

  “I tell you,” Old Pete was still smiling, “I swear I thought he was gonna vomit.” Then his expression changed and he turned to Miss Keith. “I think we better strike all that business from Nick off the record.”

  When Nick got home he told Mary about the meeting. The fact that she didn’t seem surprised added considerably to Nick’s bewilderment. He didn’t see any value in discussing it with Yvonne.

  When Old Pete came home he didn’t say anything to Nick. Nick decided that maybe his feelings on the tactics of Interstate were due possibly, actually, to his inexperience in business. Old Pete had repeatedly told him he had a lot to learn. He decided to stick it out. At the end of the week he received his paycheck. It was for thirty-three dollars. Nick went into Old Pete’s office furious: “What the hell is this? For Christ sake I can earn three times this much digging ditches,” Nick said.

  “Take it easy, kid,” Old Pete said. He had given Nick every freedom, every advantage in the last few days, hoping that Nick would begin to come around about Pat Rakis. “I just did that for a front, to make the Stratos think I’m starting you out hard. Hell, I’m gonna take care of you. Each week outa my pocket. You don’t have to worry, kid.”

  “I want to feel like I’m earning my money,” Nick said.

  “You are. You are. I can see where you’re gonna be a hell of help to me, Nick. I could see that a couple days after you were here. You got good ideas. Charlie Stratos said that was a great idea you gave him, to grow our own popcorn. Great. He’s looking into it. But, really, Nick, you ought to come to me first when you get an idea. After all, we’re blood.”

  “I don’t see where it makes a hell of a lot of difference,” Nick said. “We’re all the company. If I get an idea I think is good for the company, I think I ought to bring it up. Even if it’s to an usher in one of the theatres.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want you saying any foolish things. You may think you got a lot of good ideas but maybe I know better. Maybe I could save you a little embarrassment.”

  “I don’t embarrass easy. Besides, I’m new at this. And bound to make mistakes. But what about the money?”

  “What do you think you’re worth?” Old Pete asked.

  “How do I know?”

  “Well, we pay the managers in the theatres fifty dollars on the average.”

  “I’m not managing any theatres.”

  “I don’t think you ought to get more than fifty-five.”

  “I quit,” Nick said. “Hell, I can make more and live better in the Army. And travel besides. And besides I haven’t gone up to Fort Sheridan to apply for my discharge.”

  Old Pete was thinking about Pat Rakis again. If Nick would marry her he, Old Pete, would take those theatre leases over from the old man. It would be good for over a hundred thousand a year for Old Pete. At least a hundred thousand.

  “I mean draw fifty-five from the office,” Old Pete lied. “And I’ll give you another forty-five. How’s that?” Old Pete asked. “And if you do real good I really take care of you at the end of the year. A real bonus.”

  “Well, that’s better,” Nick said. “But it seems a damn crime that a son has to come to his father and argue for wages. Christ, I want to work. But no one gives me anything to do.”

  “You’ll have more to do than you can handle,” Old Pete said “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty to do.”

  “I get my expenses on trips, don’t I?” Nick asked.

  “Of course, son. We all get that.”

  “Well, I guess it’s all right,” Nick said in that half-sardonic way of his. Old Pete wanted to get up and belt him right across the face. One hundred a week. Why, he wasn’t worth twenty a week to the business. Goddamn punk kid. Spoiled. He must get those crazy ideas from Mary. Where else? Goddamn spoiled punk kid.

  By sheer force of will, hard-headed determination, Nick stuck it out. He tried hard in every department he was placed but each morning when he awoke he thought only of when the day would end, when after supper he would drive alone (or sometimes with Yvonne) silently along Sheridan Road. He was not given any responsibility and was treated only as the boss son. The only relief that first month came when they took a tour of a section of the Indiana theatres. He saw every movie that was in circulation. And in the evening walked alone, lonely, through the unfamiliar surroundings of the small Indiana towns with the farmers gathered under the street lamps or in the village square, or walked alone down by the river (every town had a river) and wondered why he hadn’t thought to bring his fishing equipment.

  He called Nora but less and less. She still would not speak to him. And on weekends he took out Ellen, usually, and Yvonne went out with Raul. Old Pete kept pressing him about Pat down in Atlanta and Nick wrote her several friendly letters to which she immediately replied. Old Pete and Mary were extremely tolerant of whatever Nick did, but Nick could tell a few hours before they were going to bring up the subject of Pat Rakis. It was, Nick easily discerned, usually about two hours after Old Pete and Mary would have a long conversation in their bedroom and usually took place on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Nick did not go out much. Mary sensed defeat in him. Old Pete thought he was beginning to grow up finally. But Yvonne felt the mounting tension, and so did Ellen, but in another way. Nick spent many quiet evenings with Old Gus talking about the Bible and about Saint Augustine and other things that were religious. Nick never asked Old Gus to play his zither anymore and Old Gus felt deeply of Nick’s sadness and did his best to humour him. Sometimes Nick would work in the garden with Gus and they would not talk at all.

  Pierro’s engagement to Marci was announced at the Blackstone Hotel the first week in August. There were only about a hundred select relatives and friends present. After the announcement Nick got very drunk. It was the first time he had been drunk since he had gone to work for Old Pete. He was not visibly drunk but slightly wild-eyed, Yvonne thought. Nick cornered Lou Duck near the bar. He told him he wanted to play a little joke on a friend of his who had a room over at the Plaza. He asked Lou Duck to call up Nora for him and send her over there, say it was a friend of Duck’s from Texas. Lou Duck thought that was a fine joke, especially when Nick told Lou how stingy this friend of his was and had a wife and three children in Milwaukee. Lou Duck made the call and Nora said she would be over in a half hour.

  Nick had earlier, when he had first begun to get drunk, walked down Michigan to the Congress and gotten the room. He was waiting in the room when Nora knocked. He mumbled, “Come in.”

  She came in, shut the door, then stopped abruptly.

  “You lousy Greek bastard,” she said.

  “There’s my money,” Nick said. “On the dresser. This is strictly professional.”

  She was glaring at him. Her eyes shifted darkly over to the dresser then back to him. She smiled a small slightly twisted smile. “One hundred for an hour,” she said. “Two-fifty for the night.”

  “There’s a hundred there,” he sai
d. “I can give you a check for the rest.”

  “I don’t take checks,” she said.

  He thought about going downstairs to cash one. He knew the manager but wondered if she might not leave while he was gone.

  “We’ll try the hour job,” he said, “then maybe we’ll go out and cash a check somewhere.”

  “That’s up to you,” she said. “You’re paying.”

  She began to take off her clothes.

  “Nora,” he said.

  “You want to talk,” she said coldly, “It’s all right with me. It’s your money.”

  “Drink?” he asked her. He was drinking a gin-tonic.

  “Please,” she said. He made the drink and when he turned around she was on the bed nude. He handed her the drink and began to undress. He got in bed with her. It was like it always had been, before.

  When it was over, he felt terribly shamed and dressed quickly without looking at her and walked from the room without saying a word. He went back to the Blackstone and got hold of Old Pete and took him over into a corner:

  “I’m going to Atlanta tomorrow. I’ve decided to marry Pat,” he said.

  Old Pete embraced him and began to cry. “This is the happiest day of my life.” He kissed Nick several times then made Nick promise not to tell anyone tonight, not even Mary. Old Pete said he would follow Nick down to Atlanta in several days and they would make the announcement from there.

  Then Nick went down to Clark Street and got drunk and picked up a whore and woke up in a rooming house with a terrible head and his watch and ring were gone and there was only ten cents in his pocket. He straightened out the best he could and went down to Raul’s father’s office and borrowed five dollars and went to a barber and got a shave and a massage and a manicure. Then he went home. Old Pete had already gone to the office. Nick called Pat down in Atlanta and said he was coming down and she said it was fine. Nick did not know, and Pat did not know, that Old Pete and John Rakis had talked earlier that day.

  Nick told Yvonne and Mary where he was going and what for. Mary was very happy and cried. Yvonne could tell Nick’s heart wasn’t in it and felt sorry for him. He left on the night train.