Go Naked In The World

by Chamales, Tom T. ;

  It did. Old Pete was eating when Nick stormed in, wild eyed, his face flushed, his fists clenched, his shoulders swelling from the deep enraged breath.

  “I want to talk to you,” Nick said to Old Pete.

  “You been drinkin’,” Old Pete said.

  “I said I want to talk to you. Right now.”

  “Who the hell you think you’re talking to?”

  “Unless you want your dirty linen washed right here in front of Mother and Yvonne, I’d get my rotten double-crossing ass right out of that seat.”

  “Nick,” Mary said, “don’t you dare talk to your father like that.”

  Yvonne was shaking with fright.

  “I’ll handle this, Mary,” Old Pete said. “I’ll handle this punk kid.” He got up.

  “It’s the war,” Mary mumbled. Yvonne got up and went over and put her arms around Mary.

  Nick stormed upstairs, Old Pete following.

  “You shouldn’t excite your mother like that,” Old Pete said. He was thinking that somehow Nick must have found out about the deal he, Old Pete, had made with John Rakis.

  Nick stood there, his hands on his hips, in the master bedroom glaring at his father. “I ought to kill you,” he said slowly, deliberately.

  Old Pete reddened and took two steps forward and slapped Nick hard across the face. Nick took his father’s neck in his hands and began to squeeze. Old Pete, feeling Nick’s enraged strength, stared at him with round, horrified eyes. “Nick,” his father managed to blurt. “Gheece!”

  Nick relaxed his grip. “Don’t you dare ever lay a hand on me again. Now I’m telling you two things. One: You get Nora out of that mess that you got her in. If you don’t I’m going to tell Mother. Two: You keep your rotten money-mad fingers out of Atlanta. Atlanta’s mine. And you’re not getting a dime out of it. Not one fucking dime.”

  Old Pete was shaking. He put his hand to his chest.

  Nick walked out and as he touched the hall landing he hollered toward the dining room: “The old man’s having one of those two-bit heart attacks. You’d better get up there.”

  And Nick got into the car and drove back to Nora’s. Before he went up to Nora’s, he called Yvonne and told her he would explain the whole thing to her some day and how was Old Pete. In bed resting, Yvonne said, he was all right.

  Then Nick went up to the apartment. “Don’t worry about a thing. And don’t put up another dime. Old Pete’s getting you off.”

  “You don’t know Old Pete,” she said.

  “And you don’t know my mother,” Nick said. “What kind of position you think Old Pete would be in if I told my mother he was whoring? He wouldn’t have two minutes of peace the rest of his life.”

  Nora began to laugh. Then Nick joined in.

  “Let’s go on the town and the hell with everyone,” Nick said. “The Chez, the Buttery, everywhere.”

  “Yes,” she said with that turbulence in her voice now. “Let’s.”

  “But not this second,” Nick said.

  “No,” she said. “Not this second.”

  When Nick got down to the office next day, Old Pete wasn’t there. His secretary said he was very ill and Nick should go home immediately. When Nick arrived at the Winnetka house, he passed the doctor on the porch. He had been the family doctor for years and they shook hands and made their greetings:

  “His heart?” Nick asked.

  “No, it seems to be more of an emotional condition,” the doctor said. He was very old, and tall, over six-five, with kind, tired gray eyes. “His blood pressure’s up. He’s terribly worried about you.”

  “You don’t believe that crap after all these years.”

  “I’ve always admired and liked your father, Nick.”

  Nick grinned that half-sardonic grin and went upstairs. His mother met him in the hall: “Your father isn’t well at all.”

  “I know what’s wrong with him,” Nick said. “I just talked to the doctor.”

  “Don’t do anything to upset him, please, Nick,” she said. “He’s so terribly worried about you.”

  Old Pete had been reading a paper but when he heard Nick in the hall he put the paper down and sat there, a gray dismal look on his face. Nick came in:

  “How do you feel?” Nick said.

  “Not so good, son. Not so good at all. I think it’s my heart again.”

  Jesus, but he could act, Nick said to himself.

  “I know you weren’t yourself last night,” Old Pete said. “I know the war upsets you boys.”

  “Look, Dad, what I said about Nora sticks. Whether you’re sick or not. I’m leaving town for a few days and I’d better know that you’re going to straighten that mess out. Or, I’ll go tell Mother right now,” Nick said. “I’m not kidding.”

  “You’re rotten,” Old Pete said. “Rotten. You would do something like that to your mother, wouldn’t you?”

  “You did it.”

  “You can’t cheat life, Nick. I know,” he said tiredly as if he were really very sick. “You gotta pay for your sins someday. There’s no way out, Nick.”

  “Pat’s sick. In the hospital. Not serious. She asked me to come down. I’m going.”

  “When did you hear this?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Why didn’t you say something.”

  “I’m marrying her. Not you.”

  “My God, Nick,” he said making the sign of the cross, “we’re your mother and father. Your blood. The least we could do is send something nice. What’s wrong with her?” he asked in a new not-tired-at-all voice.

  “Virus or something. I called the hospital. She’s fine. But she wants to see me.”

  “I’m glad you’re going, son. Glad,” he said dramatically. “You know you’re all I’ve got. All.” His eyes began to mist.

  “Yes, Dad.”

  “I could go any day now Nick. Then it will be up to you. I need you,” he said with such pathetic conviction that Nick reached over and patted his shoulder. “A man my age can go any minute.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Dad. Everything will work out.”

  “I forgive for what you did last night—to your own father.”

  “I won’t forgive you unless you straighten that mess out,” Nick said.

  God, but he can be cold, Old Pete thought. Ruthless.

  “I gotta few things I want you to take care of for me down at the office. I probably won’t be down for a few days. You’re the only one I got, Nick.”

  Nick went over and sat down on the chaise longue and Old Pete told him what he wanted him to do. Christ, Nick said to himself, an office boy could do what he asked.

  Then right before he left: “Stop by the church,” Old Pete said. “Light a candle for your happiness in your marriage. Take the money out of my pocket. A five.”

  “I’ve got money,” Nick said.

  “You can’t use your own money to light a candle for your own happiness,” Old Pete said. “You know better than that, Nick.”

  “Yes, Dad,” Nick said. He had no intention of stopping by the church in the first place. But he went into Old Pete’s pocket and took the five.

  “I can count on you fixing up this mess you made?” Nick asked.

  “I get on it first thing.”

  “All right,” Nick said. “I’m sorry, Dad. But it seemed the only way to deal with a rotten trick like that.”

  “I was only trying to protect you, son. My God, suppose you’d of become diseased. I know those kind of women. I’ve had experience with those kind of women. I was only trying to protect your interests.”

  “I know that,” Nick said.

  “Come over here, son,” Old Pete said. Nick came over. Old Pete took Nick’s head in his hands and kissed him and began to cry. “Take care of yourself, son. You’re all I got,” he said pathetically.

  “Good-bye, Dad,” Nick said. “I hope you feel better. I’m sure you’re not as sick as you think. I talked to the doctor. God Bless You.”

  “Don’t f
orget the church,” Old Pete said through his tears. “And call Pierro, will you, and see how he’s getting along? Do that for me will you, son? I’ve been terribly worried about Pierro lately. I dreamed about him. I don’t think it was a good dream. Tell him to be careful driving. And you be careful. And give my love—God Bless You, son,” he said.

  Nick left the room and went in and packed hastily and said good-bye to Yvonne and Mary, then went down to the office to pick up his train tickets. Miss Keith, Old Pete’s secretary, always arranged the transportation and Nick was hoping the fare would come off the company expense. Miss Keith said George Stratos wanted to see Nick before he left. Nick went into his office and they talked a while about business conditions down in Atlanta and right before Nick was going to leave Charlie walked in. They both knew, apparently from Miss Keith, that Nick was going to Atlanta to see Pat. Charlie asked the name of her hospital and George said he had already gotten it. Then right before Nick left -Charlie said: “You be good to that girl. You hurry up and marry that girl and we’ll take over those theatres when the leases are up.”

  “There’s big money down there,” George said. “Big.”

  Nick leaving the office began to think. So that was their game—he marries the girl and Old Pete and the Stratos brothers get fat. And what happens to Nick, he was half-grinning to himself sardonically on the elevator. He stopped in the bar for a quick drink. He marries the girl and everyone gets fat—Even Pierro. I wonder, Nick said to himself, if that’s why that bastard’s been so nice to me lately.

  At the station, Nick called Nora and told her he had to go down to Indiana on business but would be back in a few days.

  Old John Rakis met Nick at the station in Atlanta. He kissed Nick on the cheek and Nick smelled that he had been drinking quite a bit and could see his eyes were very bloodshot. They went directly to the hospital in his chauffeured limousine. Old John cried once on the way as he told Nick how sick his good “little baby” Pat was. It was a very pathetic, thwarted cry; the cry of one who could not perceive exactly what his daughter’s condition was and had a basic mistrust for those who cared for her.

  She smiled her sweet, innocent smile when she saw Nick and her eyes misted. In the bed, drawn, having lost considerable weight, and with her eyes all shining, she looked like a little girl of thirteen or fourteen, Nick thought. His heart went out to her and he kissed her and sat down by the edge of the bed.

  She said she was feeling much better and how happy she was that he had come, now she knew she would get better quicker. Nick held her hand and told her not to worry and joked about all his experience in hospitals. When his time was up, he went out into the corridor and talked to the doctor. She wasn’t in any danger the doctor assured him, though they had been worried about her at first. Nick went home with Old John Rakis. He lied to the old man about his medical knowledge but convinced him that there wasn’t anything to worry about. Old John drank a lot before dinner and cried again and said how much he missed his “little baby” and what a good boy Nick was to come down so quick, God would bless him. After dinner he went to sleep in a parlor chair.

  Nick took a walk. Walking he couldn’t get the picture of Pat as she was in the hospital bed from his mind. Walking, he knew somehow that he would never be able to marry her. She deserved better than him and the wild way he was, he told himself. He would bring her only misery, he felt. He didn’t know how he could tell her though. More than anything he didn’t want to hurt her, but to hurt her a little now and save all that misery through the years would be better. He would wait, he decided, until she was out of the hospital. Until he had gone back to Chicago and they had been away from each other for a while, then he could write her and explain.

  He stayed five days, then she was moved home. Both she and Old John wanted him to stay longer but he said he was needed at the office, really he had to get back. When he kissed her goodbye in her bed, he felt strangly that somehow she knew she would never see him again and there were tears in her eyes.

  On the way home, he decided he wouldn’t tell anyone for a while. Perhaps, if he could maneuver it, first get the wedding postponed for a month. The more time the easier it would be on her, he felt. He stayed in his roomette the entire trip. He did not consider any of the circumstances that would result from his not marrying her. He told himself over and over how foolish he had been to ask her in the first place. And wondered what was wrong with him—everything he touched he seemed to destroy. Ever since he had come home, in one way or another, he seemed to be going down. And for Pierro it was the opposite. Marriage and a chance to do the kind of work that he wanted to do and knew how to do so well. Again he felt he shouldn’t have come home at all, at least for a while. Then suddenly he thought of Boomer. Boomer the Woomer and that final train ride they had together. I wonder what has happened to him. I wonder if he is back in the mines. I wonder if things are as dark for him as they seem for me. How very much I would like to see him again. To drink with him and laugh away all the things we laughed away in so many places. Then he wondered again why, out of the original fifteen of them who had shipped out together as a group, they were the only two that were still alive.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  THE deterioration of a family when the family has bonds is a tragedy to witness, Old Gus thought. All these past three weeks since Nick had returned from Atlanta and Pierro had returned with his bride, Marci, the signs had grown stronger. First Nick had come to the shack to tell him that he was not going to marry Pat. Then Yvonne had come to speak to Old Gus of the silent, morbid way Nick had been acting. Then Marci had come to talk about Pierro, the irascible way he had been since they were married and his insistence that for the present, at least, they have no children. She had referred again and again to his temperament as artistic and Old Gus knew that Pierro had not told her of the syphilis that was in his family.

  Old Pete had just left and now Old Gus was sitting on the edge of his bunk. It was late in the day, the first truly cold gray day of September. In the afternoon before Old Pete had come, he had raked a portion of the lot and the fire from the leaves and the debris still burned outside and he could smell the scent of burning pinewood and the air was fresh cool, the first true fall air. The tragedy was, he was thinking, that the separation of a family was always thought of as a deterioration. Yet men knew that change was the essence of growth. Family love, as any love, could be destructive. The tragedy was the family did not understand. Old Gus remembered:

  If thou ask thy self Quis Ego, what am I? and beest able to answer thy self, why now I am a man of title, of honour, of place, of power, of possessions, a man fit for a Chronicle, a man considerable in the Herald’s office, go to the Herald’s office, the sphere and element of honour, and thou shalt finde those men as busie, about the consideration of funerals, as about the consideration of Creations, thou shalt finde that office to be as well the Grave as the Cradle of Honour, and thou shalt finde in that office as many Records of attainted families and escheated families and empoverished and obliterate families as of families newly erected and presently celebrated. In what height soever any of you that sit here, stand at home, there is some other in some higher station than yours that weighs you downe.

  Nick was forced to borrow another fifteen hundred dollars from George Stratos, though he had, because of the expense involved, given up his apartment. Old Pete kept urging Nick and Pierro to make a trip to Atlanta together so that Pierro could discuss the new five million dollar building with old John Rakis. Pierro’s office was now complete and the only two commissions he had prospectively were the ones for the building and for Nick’s house. He kept calling Nick, saying that they really ought to go down and at least find a piece of property for Nick’s house so that he could begin preliminary plans. Nick avoided both Old Pete and Pierro on one pretense or another. Old Pete began to feel for the first time that he wasn’t in complete control of the situation, and Pierro was worried. He was furnishing his apartment on the near north side and had
rent to pay at his office. Too he had had a violent argument with Old Pete because he had refused to do some simple designs for an Interstate theatre. The office had cost considerably more than he had anticipated and since the argument with Old Pete, Old Pete had reneged on paying off several creditors he had promised he would. They were, in fact, living off Marci’s income. Marci suggested that she take some radio work to augment it but he refused to let her. Old Pete went to see Gus almost every day trying to get Gus to persuade Nick to go to Atlanta with Pierro. The wedding date was now only three weeks away Nick couldn’t figure out any way to postpone it and Gus kept telling him that he must do it soon if he was going to. He went out with Nora but only a couple of times a week. She was very busy. Needed the money, she said. When they went out, they went to Calumet City a lot and Nick gambled. Old Pete was wondering if it was Nora who was making Nick act this way. Nora did not seem the same lately to Nick. She was more and more remote. Nick thought it was probably because she was underlyingly afraid of Old Pete. Nora s denial augmented Nick’s desire in a wild, frenetic way. Sometimes after a night with her he would come into the office with such an obvious contempt for his father that Old Pete would be forced to avoid him, badly as he wanted to reach him.

  Old Pete tried to get Mary to talk to Nick but Mary only sympathized with him which caused Old Pete additional irritation. Mary said that there wasn’t anything wrong with Nick, he was nervous from the war, Old Pete should be more considerate and have more faith.

  Nick talked to Pat several times. He was sure now she sensed their marriage would never go through. Finally Pierro, pressed by his creditors, went to see Old Pete. Old Pete said that by now Pierro should be on his own. He had two commissions, part of his job as an architect was to sell his work. If he couldn’t get Nick to act, that wasn’t his, Old Pete s, fault. He blamed it all on Nick. Pierro said he would go into Nick’s office and talk with him. Nick was reading Time magazine when Pierro came in.