CHAPTER XXXIII
OLD Pete arrived in Atlanta, at the Rakis estate, three days after Nick. As soon as he got there, he called Nick to his room and had a long talk with him and showed him the ring. When Nick saw the size of the ring he was speechless for a moment, then said: “It must be at least four carats.”
“Six,” Old Pete said turning it in his hand and admiring it. “Some stone, eh, kid?” he said. “A perfect stone.”
Then, after dinner, Old Pete and John Rakis had a long talk while Nick and Pat went to a movie. After the movie Nick gave her the ring. He had never seen anyone as happy as Pat was after he had proposed and given her the ring. She cried and told Nick how much she loved him and how hard she would try to make a good wife for him. They went home and she told her father. Her father had been drinking pretty much when she told him (though he knew) and he cried, and Old Pete cried along with him, and her father held her and told her how hard it was going to be to lose his “little baby” and told Nick if he ever did anything to hurt her that he would kill him, Nick, with his own hands. “You gotta take care of her now, Nick,” he kept on saying over and over.
Old Pete phoned the news to his relatives in Chicago at once. He called Mary first to tell her that Nick had given Pat the ring and asked Mary and Yvonne to come right down to Atlanta but Mary said she wasn’t feeling well, but that she would send Yvonne on the next train. Old Pete could tell Mary had been drinking quite a bit when he talked to her.
Pierro was stunned when he had heard the news. “Really, Marci,” he said after he had told her. “It’s difficult to believe. I hate to say it but the only thing I can possibly deduce is that maybe Nick’s out to acquire more power than Old Pete. I can’t think of any other reason for him marrying her.”
“No, it doesn’t seem right,” Marci said. “After all, he only knew her about a week. You could tell she adored him but she seemed such a child. And it seemed such a childish adoration. And he hardly paid her any attention. You don’t think, maybe, well, that he got her pregnant?”
Pierro thought that a moment: “I never thought of that. But I wouldn’t be surprised. Not a bit surprised. But, knowing Nick, I doubt very much if he’d marry her just because of that. I mean there must be some other motivation besides that.”
“You really don’t think he’d marry her because of that?” Marci said, as if speaking to herself. “No, I don’t think so either come to think of it. You know, I’ve come to like Nick, Pierro. But, when you get down to it, he’s a real bastard.”
“Thanks for putting it mildly, my dear,” Pierro had smiled at her, then taken another drink. Ever since they had become engaged he had been drinking more and more. Marci noticed, but not since that night at Gus’s shack had he really felt his liquor.
Mary, as instructed by Old Pete, called Charlie Stratos. Charlie, to say the least, was thrown considerably off balance by this unexpected news. He broke into a cold sweat immediately. Then he called Old Pete down in Atlanta to congratulate him and unsmilingly kidded him: “You didn’t even give my daughter a chance,” he said to Old Pete.
“Believe me, Charlie,” Old Pete said, “I didn’t have a thing to do with this—they’re nuts about each other those two. You ought to see them together.”
“Well, maybe we get a few of those theatre leases off Old John Rakis now,” Charlie said feeling Old Pete out.
“I hope so,” Old Pete said. “I hope so. We sure ought to now that we’re one big family,” Old Pete said
“Well, you got a great boy there, Pete. I wish him the best. From my heart I wish him the best. And George does, too.”
“I know you do, God bless you. Nick’s out with the girl or I’d have them say hello. And the old man’s asleep from drinking.”
“I know it’s late,” Charlie said, “but I wanted you to know my heart s with you. God bless you, Pete “
“God bless you, Charlie,” Old Pete said and hung up, a wry smile of satisfaction on his face. He could still hear the envy, pure envy of Charlie Stratos’ voice several minutes after ne finished talking to him. Old Pete was so excited he couldn’t go to sleep He knew, and Charlie Stratos knew that he knew, that it would be damn easy for Old Pete to take over the Kakis leases for himself, and not for Interstate, merely by getting the leases turned over to young Nick, which wouldn’t be too difficult a maneuver. It would be more “family” to turn the leases over to Nick. Certainly Old John would agree to that. Of course the Stratos brothers couldn’t object to what John Rakis wanted to do with his theatre leases. If he preferred turning them over to his own son-in-law rather than Old Pete and the Stratos brothers that was his, John’s, business. And it was logical. To have the theatres in the hands of his son-in-law would only be protecting his daughter’s interests. Old Pete, in turn, wouldn’t have any trouble getting Nick to sign over the leases to him. Hell, he signed anything Old Pete gave him to sign without reading it or questioning it. Of course, then too Old Pete said to himself, there is the angle of trading Atlanta theatre stock for Interstate stock so that Old Pete would have fifty percent of Interstate and control of Atlanta theatres besides. Certainly he wasn’t, even if he let the Stratos in on the Atlanta deal, going to give them any fifty percent.
God, but there were so many things he could do now that Nick was marrying Pat. Look at all the business I’ll be able to give Pierro’s office. Why he’d get rich on the business that I and old John Rakis alone could give him. Old John was now planning a five million dollar building right in the heart of Atlanta, construction to start some time next year. Of course Pierro would have to get rid of some of those crazy modern ideas. Be more practical. But that could be worked out. What a hell of a start for a young architect. You know, I ought to put up all the money for his office, get a piece of it. After all, I deserve a piece getting him all that business.
Who’d of ever thought it would work out like this so quick, Old Pete said to himself, and suddenly made the sign of the cross Orthodox fashion. It was two in the morning and he was pacing the floor of the huge guest room in his pajamas and barefooted, thinking that by now the news was all over Chicago. Then he heard Pat and Nick coming in, he thought. He opened the door and listened. He heard Nick’s voice and from the sound of it thought he had been drinking. He sneaked outside into the hall to the edge of the staircase and listened.
“I don’t see how you drink that rum and Coca-Cola,” Nick was saying to Pat. They were in the kitchen, then from the shadows Old Pete saw them cross in front of the winding old colonial winding stairs and go into the parlor, then the lights in the parlor go off. Old Pete grinned and tiptoed back into his bedroom. Tomorrow the telegrams ought to begin to pour in. By tomorrow everybody in Chicago ought to know about it, he said to himself. Everybody. But, what are people gonna think Mary not coming here? My wife, Nick’s mother, not coming for her own son’s engagement. Well, when he got back that was one of the first things he was going to do—talk to her about her drinking. And if she don’t stop I’m gonna tell her I’m gonna tell Nick and Yvonne what she is—their own mother a drunkard. That will stop her, for sure. It’s bound to. She could never stand to have Nick know she was a drunkard. Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Why hadn’t he thought of telling Mary he was going to tell Nick if she didn’t promise to quit?
The next day the telegrams and phone calls poured in. Old John Rakis threw a party that week and several of the wealthiest Atlanta Greeks gave parties for Nick and Pat and the leading banker gave them a dinner out at the country club. Pat was in an almost delirious state. Her adoration of Nick was obvious to everyone who saw them and Nick was genuinely fond of her. She was willing to give herself to Nick any time but he did not make any approach. He held her for long hours on the couch in the parlor and talked to her about the war and books and fishing. She never seemed to tire of hearing him talk and sometimes he would read poetry to her as he used to read to Yvonne.
Old Pete returned to Chicago at the end of the first week. Yvonne returned with h
im. But Nick stayed on for another week. He and Pat preferred getting married right away but her father wanted to give her a big wedding (bigger, more lavish than the one Old Pete gave for his niece) and set the day for the middle of October. Nick went around with Old John and looked at all his buildings and properties and the theatres which were leased now to one of the big movie companies on the West Coast. They were the five main houses in Atlanta and the leases expired that December. He didn’t owe anything on any of the theatre buildings. Nick was awed with the vast empire that he was soon to take over. Then Nick returned to Chicago. It wasn’t that he especially wanted to return but Old Pete said it would look bad for him to stay on down there when he wasn’t as yet married and it would look bad to Old John Rakis if he loafed and didn’t return to his job at Interstate. So Nick, playing it out to the hilt, went home. He was very surprised when Old Pete and the Stratos brothers and Lou Duck all turned up at the depot to meet him. The Stratos and Lou Duck no longer treated him as if he were some nonentity and Nick was aware of it and it made him feel good. They went down to Greek Town to have lunch and many people came by their table and congratulated Nick and Old Pete but mostly they congratulated Nick and Nick could tell Old Pete didn’t like it too much—Nick getting all that attention.
Then he went home. Mary cried and said how happy she was for him and that she could have told him this was going to happen. It was in the stars. But how hard it was going to be for her to lose him. He would never understand, not being a woman, what a mother went through raising her children and just when she felt she was getting to know them, off they went. Nick had a difficult time calming her. After he calmed her, she showed him all the clippings in the Chicago papers about his engagement. The clippings had a profound effect on him. He took them up to his room and read them over and over, realizing suddenly that he was suddenly someone of importance. There were all kinds of invitations for him; for lunch, for cocktails, for dinners. He was really quite pleased with it all.
Yvonne came in while he was sitting on his bed reading the clippings. “Don’t let them throw you, boy,” she said.
“I’m gonna be a millionaire,” Nick said:
“God help her if that’s the only reason you’re marrying her.—God, it must be a disease. First Sophia. Then Marci and Pierro. Then you and Pat. And now Raul and Ellen.”
“Raul and Ellen?”
“Yes,” Yvonne said, “Raul and Ellen. And don’t tell me you can’t figure it out.”
“Raul, married to her, will end up just like his father.”
“And what will you end up?”
“A millionaire. I’ll make more money than Old Pete ever dreamed of.”
“Money doesn’t mean that much to you,” she said.
“Suddenly, it does.”
“You’ll never make it, Nick. You haven’t got the heart.”
“It’s the war,” he said.
“What’s the war?”
“All these marriages. People always get married like this in war. Or when the war’s ending. It’s the only adventure left, getting married. What else is there to do? Tell me.”
“Doesn’t anyone have any insides left anymore? Can’t anyone wait for anything?” she said slightly perplexed. “Why all this urgency?”
“That’s a funny word. I was thinking about that word down in Florida. That’s easy. You are born into the age of it, and you live it.”
“Then you are like everybody.”
“Yes,” Nick said suddenly, very seriously. “Yes, it doesn’t look like there is any way out of that. At least not for me.”
“You didn’t try very hard. How can you say you tried when you’ve been drinking and whoring the way you have? What about Old Gus, he’s found his way out.”
“Gus is different,” Nick said. “What does Gus think about me getting married?”
“When I told him I thought he would vomit on the spot. He didn’t have anything to say. He was brushing one of the goats and he looked at me in a way I’ve never seen him look then went back to brushing the goats.”
“I must go see him,” Nick said.
“Yes, go see him. See someone you won’t be able to fool. Old Pete’s been down to his place three or four times since he came back from Atlanta.”
“Going there is like going to church for Old Pete,” Nick said.
Nick was still sitting on his bed and Yvonne got up and shut the bedroom door.
“I found out something a couple of days after you left. I think you ought to know about it,” Yvonne said.
“Well,” Nick said.
“I think Mother’s a drunkard.”
Nick didn’t say anything for a moment. “Why?”
“The night you called from Atlanta to tell us the engagement was set I heard some noise downstairs early in the morning. I found Mother passed out on the floor of the living room, a bottle of bourbon spilled on the carpet,” Yvonne said factually. “Then I thought of some other things in the past, the odd way she acted at times. The next day she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t let me in. She had talked to me and you could tell from her voice she was drunk.”
“So,” Nick said, “what do you expect? Living, catering to that old bastard for all these years—it would drive anyone to drink.”
“We’ve got to help her,” Yvonne said.
“If we can. If she wants to be helped. You’ve got to be hurt bad from drinking before you’ll ever want to help yourself—I know that. A drunkard friend of mine in the Army shot a soldier when he was on a bender one time. I helped to defend him at his court-martial. I learned a lot from him about drinking. And a lot from the doctors I talked to trying to get information that would be helpful at the trial. Drinking is a sickness,” Nick said. “I wonder if Old Pete knows.”
“I doubt it,” Yvonne said.
“I don’t,” Nick said. “Old Pete is smarter than you think.”
“Smarter than you think. He’s putting up the money for Pierro’s office.”‘
“I thought he would. I’ll bet he’s got a piece of it, too.”
“Yes,” Yvonne said, “he’s smarter than both of you. And stronger. The two of you and your big plans when you came home. It took him about two months and he’s got you both wrapped up in pretty little packages and he’s sitting down in his office now fixing up the ribbons.”
“Maybe he’s got Pierro wrapped up,” Nick said. “But not me.”
“We’ll see,” Yvonne said.
“We’ll see,” Nick said.
He lighted two cigarettes and handed one to Yvonne.
“I feel sorry for Pat,” Yvonne said.
“I feel sorry for those poor bastards at Hiroshima,” Nick said. “One hundred thousand dead,” he said emptily. “Do you know how many dead that is? You wouldn’t know. You can’t visualize the dead until you have seen them. Thirty dead would fill this room. Two hundred and fifty dead would fill this house. I mean if you laid the carcasses out side by side you wouldn’t be able to walk except on them. One hundred thousand! That’s ten times as many as this village we live in. That’s twice all the Greeks in Chicago. That’s you and me and Mary and Old Pete and Pierro and Marci and Nora and everyone we know multiplied by thousands. All dead! You may think you are not responsible for part of that but you are. That is one of the reasons you marry so much while you kill, I think. To make up for it. Now that we have this thing that kills with such effectiveness we are bound to marry like hell. At least I was timely,” Nick said bitterly. “I got engaged the day the damn thing was dropped.”
“You act like Christ sometimes, bearing the cross.”
“You bear it, too,” Nick said. “Except you don’t know it. You will probably have more babies than anyone. Because you are so damn religious in a way and have such a conscience.”
“I want a lot of babies. I want five.”
“You would,” Nick said.
“And you?”
“It never occurred to me,” he said. “No, I am not too thrilled
with the idea of having a baby. Not for a while, anyhow.”
“It would tie you down, wouldn’t it?” she said.
“Yes, it would.”
“I’ll never marry a Greek,” she said.
“We’ll see,” he said.
“When you spoke about the bomb you mentioned Nora. That’s the first time you mentioned her in a long time,” Yvonne said.
“I don’t recall having mentioned her. That’s over. What we have might as well be in the rubble pile of Hiroshima.”
“No one seems as concerned about this bomb as you.”
“I was thinking about the dead. The bomb—there will be more. Bigger and better ones. I only thought of the dead. Most soldiers undoubtedly thought of the dead. For the people it is excitement. Excitement is the opium of this country. An automobile accident on the road and everyone stops and gawks. Excitement. You cannot sell newspapers without excitement in this country. The atomic bomb—that is excitement,” Nick said. “Getting married, that is excitement. Becoming a millionaire, that is excitement too.” Christ, what was wrong with him now? WHY was he deliberately trying to hurt her now? “Screwing Old Pete, that is excitement too. And acting uncouth in front of Pierro. There’s excitement everywhere, really, if you know how to find it. There is.”
“You’re sick.”
“I’m confessing.”
“You should,” she said. Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry for you,” she said. “I really am.” And got up and left the room.
He picked up the clippings and read them over several times, then stretched out on his bed and read them over again, then silently dropped them to the floor. He reached over and from his bookshelf took down the Bible his grandfather had given him and read the inscription in the front:
“To Nick,
All you ever need to know is here.
The Colonel”
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