Hard City

by Clark Howard

  Several minutes later, when Richie came into the bathroom, he found Dorothy as naked as he was. “I haven’t had my bath yet either. Okay if I get in too?”

  “Sure,” Richie said, shrugging, knowing he was blushing.

  They got into the tub together, facing each other, but then Dorothy turned him around and pulled him back close to her so that she could wash him. She was very gentle with him now; she had been since the night she showed him the bite marks. Tonight, getting into the tub, he had glanced at her breasts and seen one recent mark and two older ones, so he guessed Dorothy’s father was still doing things to her. He noticed too that her breasts were getting larger; no longer just swollen mounds under the nipples, they now had body and movement. When she turned him back around, he could not help looking at them.

  “Do you think they’re pretty?” Dorothy asked, catching him looking.

  “Yeah,” Richie admitted, turning his face away. Dorothy put a knuckle under his chin and turned his face back.

  “It’s okay, you can look.” Knowing he was blushing again, Richie looked anyway. “You’ve never told anyone about the teeth marks, have you?” she asked sternly, reminding him of the old Dorothy.

  “No,” he replied quickly. “I never would.”

  “Okay, don’t ever,” she cautioned, her voice becoming gentle again. Without talking, Dorothy washed herself as Richie watched, getting on her knees to do part of it. When she was rinsing, she asked, “Richie, would you ever bite a girl’s titties?”

  “No!” he swore. “I wouldn’t bite a girl nowhere!”

  “What if she asked you to? Would you do it then?”

  “I don’t know,” he hedged.

  “I mean if she liked it and wanted you to?”

  “Well, maybe then,” he allowed.

  On her knees, Dorothy moved very close to him. Under the water, she covered his erection with the warm, soapy wash cloth.

  “I like it, Richie,” she said. “I like it a lot.”

  She pulled his mouth to her breasts.

  Louis had taken Richie to see the man in the car who came with the magazines on Thursdays. His name was Mr. Baker and he gave Richie a job like Louis had, peddling weekly magazines from a canvas sack slung across his chest. After taking down Richie’s name and address, Mr. Baker gave him a sack with the Liberty logo on it, and ten copies each of that magazine plus the Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s.

  “ ‘Member,” Louis cautioned, “the twenty-two-hundred block of Warren is mine. I got some reg’lar customers on that block.”

  “Sure,” Richie agreed.

  Mr. Baker told him the procedure. “I’ll be parked right here at six o’clock to take the money you collect, pay you for what you’ve sold, and give you a supply of magazines to sell tomorrow afternoon. Then I’ll be parked right here at six o’clock tomorrow to settle up for tomorrow. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Richie said.

  While Louis started on the block where they lived, Richie went over to Madison and tried selling in front of a Walgreen’s. Quickly noticing that a number of people who emerged from there already had magazines from the drugstore rack, he moved down the block. Trying a barber shop, he was told they had subscriptions. He sold a few to people on the street, then found a good spot outside a grocery store, catching women as they came out with their groceries. By the time he had to start back to meet Mr. Baker at the car, he had sold half of the magazines and made thirty cents.

  That night at home, sitting cross-legged on his bed before it was time to turn out the light, Richie idly thumbed through a copy of the Saturday Evening Post. On one page he discovered a colorful illustration of a stagecoach being chased by marauding Indians. Richie’s mouth dropped open. Previously exposed only to Chloe’s movie magazines, which rarely contained photos of cowboy stars, and to True Romances and similar publications, which he found totally stupid, he was amazed now to discover a Western story in the Saturday Evening Post. It was entitled “Stage to Lordsburg” and had been written by someone named Ernest Haycox. Pulse quickening, Richie began to read.

  He was still reading, enthralled by the story, half an hour later when his mother said, “Time to turn out the light and go to sleep, sugar.” Seeing what he was doing, she added, “You shouldn’t be reading the Post, Richie. It’s way too old for you.”

  Richie was learning never to argue; it usually amounted to a waste of time. Putting the magazine aside, he turned off his light and got into bed. Five minutes later, he got up, crept into the hall to make sure Chloe was back in the living room listening to the radio, then returned to his bedroom, quietly closed the door, turned the light on, and resumed reading the story. It was wonderful, exciting, thrilling—better than a comic book or a Big-Little Book, better even than a radio program, almost as good as a movie serial. Eagerly, he searched the issue for more stories; he found some, but no other Westerns. One war story looked promising, but it quickly turned into a gushy love story. Finally, eyes heavy, Richie turned the light out again and went to sleep. He dreamed about the Ringo Kid, hero of “Stage to Lordsburg.”

  Immediately after school the next day, Richie hurried home to get his magazines and get out on the street with them. He found the apartment door unlocked and a note from his mother on the table. “I went to see Estelle,” the note read. “Back in time for supper.” Richie frowned. Chloe worked from six to two at the bakery; usually she was lying down resting when he got home. But in the interest of hurrying to sell his magazines, he shrugged it off, changed clothes, and rushed out again.

  This time he hung around an A & P market on Western Avenue, where he again sold about half of what he had. The load in the canvas sack was heavy when he first started out, the weight pulling against his neck as he walked, but at the market it gradually got lighter with each copy he sold. When business slacked off at the market, he moved down to a cigar store on the corner, selling only a few copies there before the wizened little stoop-shouldered proprietor came out and chased him away. “Beat it!” he yelled. “Don’t bodder my customers. Make your pennies someplace else!” Silently calling the man filthy names, Richie moved up to another grocery on Oakley Boulevard, and stayed there until it was time to meet Mr. Baker. He sold eighteen magazines that second day, earning thirty-six cents.

  When Richie got home, his mother was back, lying on the couch smoking a cigarette, listening to music on the radio.

  “Sugar, I don’t feel like eating supper tonight,” she said sleepily. “There’s two hamburgers for you in the oven. Pour yourself some milk to go with them, all right?”

  “Sure,” Richie said. His mother’s eyelids were heavy and she had dropped cigarette ashes on the rug. Richie ground the ashes into the rug with his shoe and went into the kitchen to eat.

  Sitting alone at the table, eating one of the hamburgers and drinking milk, he kept glancing over at a small covered garbage can under the sink. He wanted to look in it, yet he didn’t want to look in it. From the living room he could hear Chloe humming softly to herself. Finally, when he finished the first hamburger, he got up and went over to the sink. Opening the garbage can, he moved an empty Wheaties box and some crumpled butcher paper and saw under them exactly what he had both known and dreaded that he would find.

  An empty paregoric bottle.

  23

  At the stadium on Saturday night, Richie was hawking popcorn in Mezzanine C between bouts of a fight card being put on for Navy Relief. The main event was to be a three-round exhibition match featuring Sergeant Joe Louis of the U. S. Army, who was the heavyweight champion of the world. It was a big night for Chicago boxing fans; the stadium was standing room only.

  Richie had sold out his tray of bagged popcorn and was on his way back to the vendor room for Rondo to fill him up again. As he passed the top of an aisle, his glance fell on a tall, blond-haired man standing up at one of the aisle seats a dozen rows behind ringside. Next to him was a woman with long black hair. They were half turned away from Richie so that he could n
ot see their faces. Recognition suddenly dawned and Richie’s head snapped around, his eyes riveting on the tall, blond man. Moving quickly down the aisle to the mezzanine railing, Richie tried to get a better look, but as he did, the man sat down in his seat and he could only see the back of his head.

  Could it possibly be . . . ?

  Hurrying back up the aisle, Richie made his way to the concrete stairs that led down to the main level. On the way he was joined by another kid, a boy named Larry who had been hawking peanuts in Mezzanine F.

  “Richie, wait up!” Larry said. “Hey, did you know that Buck Jones was coming to the Senate two days from now?”

  “What?” Richie said, slowing a step, tearing his mind away from the urgency of the moment. “You mean a Buck Jones movie?”

  “No! The real Buck Jones! In person!”

  Stopping, Richie faced him. “Who says?”

  “Russ, the beer vendor, says he seen it ina paper. Buck Jones is on a war bond tour an’ he’s gonna be at some fancy shindig in the Loop, but the paper says that in every city he goes to selling bonds, he always picks out a show somewheres so kids can come see him too. This time, he picked the Senate. He wants all the kids in the city to come see him. All’s you gotta do to get in is buy a quarter savings stamp to help the war effort.”

  “Russ says it was in the paper?”

  “Yeah! Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

  “I will,” Richie said, blood rushing faster now, temples pounding, excitement doubling at the possibility of his father being in the arena, and now the prospect of actually seeing—seeing in person—-his longtime idol, Buck Jones.

  Leaving Larry, Richie continued on to the main floor of the big arena and cut back to the aisle on which he had seen the blond-haired man. The middleweight exhibition had just begun. When Richie started down the aisle, an usher stopped him. “Not during the bout, kid,” he said, pointing a warning finger.

  “I was just gonna take a look at somebody,” Richie explained. The usher shook his head.

  “Not during the bout,” he repeated emphatically. “You know the rules. I let you down there, I could lose my job for it.”

  Just then somebody yelled, “Hey, Richie! Rondo says get over here!”

  Richie hurried to the vendor room. “Where the hell you been?” Rondo asked him. “When that tray’s empty, you get right down here and fill up, understand? Don’t hang around talking to nobody.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Richie said. He saw Russ filling a cooler with bottles of beer. Russ was seventeen, with extremely thick eyeglasses and the mentality of a twelve year old. “Hey, Russ, what’d you see ina paper about Buck Jones?” Richie asked.

  “He’ll be at the Senate on Monday night at six o’clock.”

  “You sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. If it was ina paper, it’s gotta be so, ain’t it?”

  “What paper?” Richie asked suspiciously.

  “Times.”

  As his tray was being filled with bagged popcorn, Richie considered the information. If it was in the Times, it was probably true. The Times and the Herald-American were always dependable; it was the Tribune that couldn’t be trusted. Once the Tribune advertised a movie at the American Theater, down on Ashland Avenue, and after Richie went all the way down there, there was a different picture playing. The ticket girl told him the Tribune got the ads mixed up and ran the wrong one. Richie never trusted the Tribune again.

  When his tray was full, he went back up to Mezzanine C and stood behind the back row of seats, watching the back of the blond man’s head on the main floor. There was no way Richie could get a better look at the blond man until the boxing card ended and everyone was leaving; no way, that is, without getting in trouble and maybe losing his job. If he had been just a little more certain that it was his father, nothing could have kept him from charging down that aisle to where he sat. But if he did that and then found out it was only someone who looked like his father, and it cost him his job, that would be really dumb. A couple dozen kids showed up at the stadium every time there was an event, trying to get a job hawking; Richie was not about to lose his unless he was absolutely sure there was a good reason to lose it. So for now he watched, and waited.

  The final, and feature, bout of the evening was the heavyweight match, three rounds, with the champion Joe Louis boxing one round each with sparring partners from his Special Services unit. After that bout began, the hawkers all lined up in the vendor room to check out for the evening. Richie got there as quickly as he could so that he would be finished and could station himself at the head of the aisle where the blond man had to come out. Usually the check-out went quickly; Rondo kept accurate tabs on all of his hawkers. But tonight there was a problem; one of the hot dog hawkers started an argument about the count. “I di’nt come back for four extra dogs,” Richie heard him say, “on’y four extra buns. Some asshole spilt beer on four of my buns and I hadda t’row ’em away.”

  “I show here four extra hot dogs,” Rondo said, tapping the guy’s supply card with a pencil.

  “I never got no dogs, on’y buns,” the hawker insisted.

  “Hey, Myrt!” Rondo called to the woman who cooked and distributed the hot dogs. “C’mere a minute, will you?”

  While Richie waited impatiently in line, Russ, who was behind him, said “You going up there Monday night, to the Senate?”

  “You bet,” Richie said. “I wouldn’t miss it for nothing.”

  “Me neither,” Russ told him solemnly. Although older and bigger than most of the other kids, because he was slow Russ liked the same things they did and usually took part in the same activities. All of the kids accepted him and were protective of him. “Maybe I’ll see you there,” Russ said.

  “I’m getting there early,” Richie said. “I’ll save you a seat.”

  Russ beamed. “T’anks, Richie!”

  Edgy, shifting from foot to foot, Richie knew the last bout was almost over. He stuck his head out and yelled, “Hey, why ain’t the line moving?”

  “You shut up!” Rondo yelled back. “We got a problem up here!”

  The hawkers continued to wait. From back in the arena, they heard a loud cheer and wild applause. “Main event’s over,” one of the hawkers farther back in the line said.

  Richie bit his lip. Suppose it was his father? Suppose this was the only chance he would ever have in his whole life to find him again? Suppose—

  “Listen,” Richie said to Russ, “save my place, will you?”

  “Okay.”

  Richie stepped out of line and headed toward the door.

  “Hey!” Rondo yelled. “Where the hell you think you’re going?”

  “I gotta see somebody,” Richie said. ‘I’il be right back—”

  “Stay here,” Rondo ordered. “The ushers don’t like youse guys getting in the way when the crowd’s leaving.”

  “I just wanna take a look at a guy I think I know. I’ll be right back.”

  “Did you hear what I said?” Rondo demanded. “I said stay here!”

  Out the door, Richie could see lines of spectators, four and five abreast, filing from the aisles into the exit lanes. The people in the main floor seats, where the blond man and the dark-haired woman had sat, were always the first ones out.

  “Come on, Rondo,” Richie pleaded. “Just lemme go out for one minute—”

  “No! Get your goddamn ass back in that line!”

  Richie stared at Rondo. All the hawkers in line had turned to look at Richie. In the space between Richie and where Rondo stood, an image of the back of the blond man’s head suddenly appeared. And the tormenting words returned.

  Suppose it was him . . . ?

  “Get back in line!” Rondo ordered again.

  “Go fuck yourself!” Richie suddenly yelled. Quickly taking the canvas strap from around his neck, he raised the empty wooden vendor tray over his head and hurled it against the wall. Then he bolted from the room and into the exiting crowd.

  Working his
way across the flowing stream of people, Richie edged along the wall against the crowd and got into the arena. He zigzagged through several emptying rows in several sections to get to the aisle where the blond man had been sitting. The man’s seat was empty, as was the one next to it where the woman had sat. Richie’s eyes searched the backs of the people moving up that aisle. Suddenly he saw the blond man, his arm around the shoulders of the woman, as they inched their way forward. They were nearly at the top of the aisle, about to move into the exit lane.

  Panic rising in his chest, Richie jumped several rows of seats toward the next aisle over. Some of the spectators looked at him curiously as he reached the aisle and began trying to push his way through the people.

  “Hey, look out, kid!” someone yelled. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “Watch it, punk, don’t push,” a burly man snapped.

  “I’m sick!” Richie yelled. “Look out, I’m gonna throw up!”

  Immediately the crowd opened up and gave him room. Holding his mouth and making regurgitating noises, Richie rushed forward to the exit lane and disappeared into a different part of the crowd.

  By the time Richie got to the section of the exit lane off the aisle where he had seen him, the blond man was nowhere in sight. Richie moved back and forth in the exit lane to make certain he had not missed him. When he was sure, he hurried forward, scurrying among the dispersing spectators, until he passed through the glass exit doors and reached the street.

  People were thick on the sidewalk, and traffic in the street was barely creeping. Richie hopped up on the front fender of a parked car and scanned the moving heads. There was a sea of faces—but no one who looked like his father. A policeman on a shiny brown horse came up next to him.

  “Get down off there before you get hurt,” he said. He fixed Richie with an unblinking stare until Richie got down.

  After that, Richie just wandered up and down the edge of the sidewalk, looking at everybody who passed, everybody who got into a parked car or a taxi, everybody who went into one of the many nearby bars, everybody who piled into one of the new streamlined Madison streetcars. Minute by minute his excitement subsided and an old dull depression came over him, a depression he had felt so often when reminded that he did not have a father.