by Clark Howard
“Which means, I suppose, that I’m not worth it,” Midge said stiffly.
“I didn’t say that—”
“You might as well have.” She looked away, teary-eyed. “After all we’ve been to each other, I just can’t believe you’re going to go off and leave me like that. I mean, what in the world am I supposed to do all summer, sit and twiddle my thumbs while you’re up there in Chicago having a good time?”
“I won’t be having a good time; I’ll be working,” he said patiently.
“All right, suit yourself,” Midge said finally, “go on and go. But,” she warned, “don’t expect me to sit around and wait for you to come back.”
“If that’s the way you feel about it, maybe I won’t even come back,” Richie retorted, his own anger rising. What the hell, he thought, he had made it on his own in Chicago once before without getting caught. There was no reason he couldn’t do it again. Fuck this little town with all its petty-minded people. Maybe, by God, he just wouldn’t come back.
“Have you made up your mind about this?” Midge asked when she dropped him off that night. “You’re definitely going?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I guess that’s that, then,” she said coldly.
When she drove off, Richie knew she would not be back.
There was a pool hall in one of the little towns near Lamont that Richie had noticed when he was looking for vending machines to steal. It had an old-fashioned skylight in the roof that was opened and closed with a long pole to let air in. The only lock was a simple slide bolt that was pushed back and forth with the pole. There were two pinball machines and a big red Coca-Cola machine in the place. Richie figured that with a little luck he could get ten dollars worth of nickels out of each one. A train ticket to Chicago was twenty-one dollars.
When the last day of school was over, instead of going home, Richie went up to the Blue Star Café where the buses stopped, and caught a local Greyhound bus. Arriving in the town where the pool hall was, he checked the schedule back to Lamont; the last bus was at a quarter past twelve. The pool hall would have to close no later than eleven o’clock for his plan to work. Crossing the square, Richie entered the pool hall and, using the best Southern accent he could manage, said to the counterman, “I want to meet my brother here later on tonight. What time do y’all close?”
The counterman said eleven o’clock. It would work, Richie decided. On his way out, he glanced up at the skylight; the bolt wasn’t even closed. Going up to the corner, Richie went around to the alley and walked back past the rear of the pool hall. There were iron bars covering both windows. Perfect for climbing, he thought.
In a drugstore, Richie bought a candy bar and stole two others, then walked up the street to the movie house.
Several hours later, sitting on the curb across the street, concealed by the shadow of a big tree, Richie watched through the front window as the counterman started getting ready to close, counting money from the register and putting it into a bank bag. Promptly at eleven, the man hustled two remaining customers out and went around turning off the lights. Leaving, he locked the front door and Richie saw him walk down to a bank on the corner, put the bag in a night depository, then get in his car and drive off.
Richie walked briskly to the corner and ducked around into the alley. Flattening himself against a building, he waited in deep shadows, counting to three hundred to see if anyone was following him. When he was sure he had not been seen, he hurried down to the rear of the pool hall. Just in case, he carefully tried the back door. It was locked. At the window, he gripped the bars, swung his feet up, and climbed them to the top. Gingerly he stood up on the top cross-bar and gripped the edge of the roof parapet. Straining, he pulled himself up as quietly as he could and hooked one knee over the side. When he got all the way up, he lay flat near the edge and once more counted to three hundred. Again there was no indication that he had been seen.
Creeping across the roof, remembering earlier that the skylight had been unlocked, Richie tried to lift it open. It was now locked. Son of a bitch, he silently cursed. Removing the screwdriver from his pocket, he wrapped its metal handle in his handkerchief and firmly rapped the pane of glass over the latch. Breaking, the glass fell into the pool hall below. As soon as he had done it, Richie ran in a crouch to the front of the roof and peered out at the dark town square. He saw no movement, heard no sound.
Back at the skylight, Richie opened it and put the bar in place to hold it. Then he lowered himself over the edge, hung by his hands and dropped onto a pool table below. Vaulting off, he kept in a crouched position and looked out the window, checking the street again. All was quiet. Moving to the front counter, he slowly depressed one of the cash register keys. As the drawer opened, a bell inside the machine sounded briefly, causing Richie to freeze and look anxiously out the front window again. Still no one, nothing. In the register drawer he found twenty dollars in currency and coins, change to start the next day’s business.
From the register, Richie moved to the two pinball machines. Each of them had a hasp and padlock on the front panel covering the coin box. With his screwdriver, he had both of them pried open in three minutes, working quietly and carefully without noisily splitting the wood. He emptied both change boxes, pouring the nickels into a pair of socks he had brought along. Knotting one of them, he left the other open and moved to the Coca-Cola machine. For ten minutes he worked and pried and jimmied on the built-in lock that held the machine’s door closed, but it remained firm; Richie’s screwdriver was not strong enough to force the mechanism.
Sweating, breathing heavily, Richie put a nickel into the machine and got a bottle of Coke. He drank it all down in three long swallows, and stuck the empty in a wooden case next to the machine. Looking quickly around, seeing nothing else worth bothering with, he put a straight wooden chair on top of a pool table, carefully balanced himself on it, and climbed back out through the skylight.
It was five before midnight when Richie walked into the bus station, cash register money in his pocket, knotted socks full of nickels in a paper bag under his arm. There were three other people in the waiting room. No one paid more than cursory attention to him. Richie sat down to wait the twenty minutes for his bus.
The next morning, Mrs. Clark found Richie packing his belongings in a zipper bag. “What are you fixing to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to Chicago,” he told her. “I’m going to find me a job up there.” He folded a pair of trousers over the socks of nickels.
“If you go,” his grandmother said, “you won’t come back.”
“Maybe I won’t,” Richie allowed.
“Just remember what that welfare lady told you about Chicago being a hard city. Remember what she said about it breaking you.”
“I’d rather be broken by Chicago than starved to death by Lamont,” he countered.
“Well, it’s your life,” Mrs. Clark said, trying to sound indifferent.
“At least up there I’m not an outcast. Up there nobody cares how I talk or who my father was.”
“You’re making a mistake,” his grandmother warned.
“Won’t be the first time,” Richie replied, zipping the bag closed. At the front door, he said, “Thanks for letting me live here. Thanks for trying to help me. So long,” he said, and added wryly, “Miss Ethel.”
Bag in hand, Richie walked down the hill to the train depot.
46
Getting off the streetcar, Richie walked up Madison Street toward Cascade Bowling Lanes. He had a little more than sixteen dollars left, all of it in nickels, most of it still in the zipper bag he carried. Feeling good, he walked with a bounce and energy that had been missing for several months. Being back in Chicago again, feeling the throb and beat of the city, he didn’t give a goddamn whether he ever saw Lamont, Tennessee, and its spiteful, small-minded inhabitants again. Striding up to Cascade’s entrance, he felt as if he were coming home after a long absence. Tonight, he figured, he would be back in the
bowling alley pits and sleeping in the ladies’ lounge, just like old times.
At the counter, Richie found an overweight man in an open collar sport shirt, sweat rings under each arm, a half-smoked cigar clenched between his teeth. “Red around?” Richie asked.
“Red ain’t worked here for over a year,” the man said. “What’d you want him for?”
“I was hoping to get a job spotting,” Richie said, surprised. What a difference between the cool, dapper Red and this fat slob. “I used to work here, but I been gone a couple of years. Been living in Tennessee where my dad was working.”
“Well, I got a reg’lar crew of pinboys,” the man said. “You want me to, I can put your name on my extra list to fill in if somebody gets sick or don’t show. You can check back with me about five-thirty.”
“Sure, thanks.”
Before leaving, Richie went upstairs to the locker room. It looked pretty much the same, but the combination locks he had on three of the lockers were gone, and there was now a name stenciled on each locker door. Looks like I’ll be sleeping without a blanket or pillow tonight, he thought. He was relieved to see that the ladies’ lounge was still in the same place, and through the door as a woman was entering he caught a glimpse of the divan. It looked like an old friend.
When he left the bowling alley, Richie walked down to Hamlin Avenue and into the Midwest Athletic Club. The sight and smell of the gym flooded his mind with memories; he stood for several minutes just looking around fondly, not only at the gym floor but also the balcony bleachers where he once peddled his stolen merchandise. For some weird reason, thinking back on those hard times, they did not seem all that terrible. It was strange, he thought, how life changed with the perspective of time.
Walking the length of the gym to the corner where the club fighters used to train, Richie encountered no one he recognized or remembered. All the fighters working out seemed to be older, adults, probably pros. After hanging around for a while, he finally went to the gym office and stuck his head in the door, asking for Myron. A man with his hat on looked up from a cluttered desk. “Myron? Myron who?”
“The guy who trains the club fighters,” Richie told him.
“Oh, the old Jewish guy. He passed away.”
“Passed away?” Richie was stunned. “He died?”
“Yep. Died right up there in one of the bleachers seats, sitting up. We thought he was asleep until we got ready to close and tried to wake him up.”
“Jesus,” Richie muttered, feeling sad and sick.
“Yeah, when the state banned club fights, the old guy didn’t have nothing to do with his time. Used to come in here every day and just sit and watch. All day long. Finally just closed his eyes and conked out.”
Richie left the gym in a daze. Feeling desperate to see someone he knew and who knew him, he decided to ride a streetcar down to Mack’s garage. All the way he kept thinking about Myron just sitting there in the gym until he died. Several times during the streetcar ride, Richie felt like crying. Then, when he got where he was going, he suffered his third disappointment of the day. The garage had been turned into a motorcycle shop. “Mack moved down to Florida somewheres,” the proprietor told Richie. “ ‘Bout two years ago. I ain’t got his address.”
Riding back up to the West Side, Richie could hardly believe the incredible run of bad luck he was encountering. No longer was he feeling buoyant about his return to Chicago; now he was beginning to feel like a stranger in a foreign land.
Back at Cascade, the counterman told Richie that all his regular pinsetters had shown up, but he could try again tomorrow if he wanted to. Thanking him, Richie left again and wandered up Madison. For a few minutes he stood aimlessly on the corner of Pulaski Road, not knowing which way to go next. When a newsstand operator began to look at him suspiciously, Richie moved on.
At Cascade again, later that night, hanging around watching the second league finish, Richie noticed a uniformed security guard go behind the counter and punch a timeclock. What the hell? he thought, frowning. As soon as the guard left, Richie went over and spoke to the counterman. “Excuse me, sir, I just wanted to find out how early I can get my name on that extra list tomorrow?”
“I start taking names about four,” the counterman said.
“Swell, thanks. Say, who’s the guy in the uniform? I don’t remember him being here.”
“Night watchman,” the heavy man said. “Been here about six months. The joint was burglarized a couple times. Guys was getting in at night and prying open all the vending machines. Now the watchman sits in here all night with a pistol; we don’t have no more trouble.”
And I don’t have a bed anymore, Richie thought.
Leaving the bowling alley, shaking his head ironically, Richie hopped a streetcar down to lower Madison Street and was pleased to see that the old all-night Haymarket Theater was still there. At least he had someplace to sleep.
The next day, stiff and sore from spending the night in the theater seat, sniffing a little from a slight head cold caused by the air conditioning, Richie was back out on the West Side wandering around again. He had spent the morning trying to find Estelle, his mother’s old friend, to see if she had a couch he could bunk on for a few nights. Or maybe, Richie secretly fantasized, even share her bed; he vividly remembered Estelle’s voluptuous body, the way her buoyant breasts swayed and shifted when she moved, and the things he had seen her do with men when he spied on her through the keyhole. In his imagination, he had decided that a sexual encounter with Estelle would be spectacular.
Starting with the last place he had known her to be living, Richie traced Estelle through three other apartment buildings and two jobs, but eventually lost track of her completely. At her most recent address, the landlady was still holding mail for her; at her most recent job, no one had ever called for an employment reference. Estelle seemed to have fallen out of the city entirely.
Back on Madison Street, Richie was thinking that if he did not get to work at the bowling alley that night, he would go over to Lake Street and see if he could find Vernie. Maybe she could figure out someplace for him to stay. Walking past a pool hall on the corner of Springfield, Richie suddenly heard someone say, “Hey, kid, wanna go rat-killing?”
Head snapping around, Richie saw that it was Stan Klein. “Hey, Stan!” he said loudly, grinning. Stan was in the doorway of the pool hall, holding a cue stick, wearing nice slacks and a stylish polo shirt. Just behind him stood Bobby Casey.
“Where the hell you been for so long, man?” Stan asked, punching him lightly on the muscle.
“Charleytown,” Richie said, omitting his nine months in Lamont; that was too involved to explain just then.
“Charleytown, no shit?” Stan said, impressed. “Well, welcome home!” Stan was obviously glad to see him.
“Where’d you get them clothes?” Bobby Casey asked derisively. “The Salvation Army?”
“I bought ’em,” Richie said, looking down at his cardigan sweater and corduroy trousers. “Why, what’s the matter with them?”
“They’re hick clothes, man. You look like you just got off the boat.”
“Leave him alone, Case,” said Stan. He put an arm around Richie’s shoulders. “Come on inside.”
The pool hall was deep and narrow, five old tables with drop pockets, all of them set horizontally in the room like big green stepping stones. Only one table had its light on: the rear one, where Stan and Bobby had a game in progress.
“How ’bout shooting a game for five bucks?” Bobby immediately challenged Richie.
“Hey, didn’t I just say leave him alone?” Stan reminded. “What do you wanna try and take his dough for?” Stan got a bottle of Pabst Blue Ribbon from a cooler, flipped a quarter to the counterman, opened the bottle, and handed it to Richie, all in one smooth, unbroken motion, as if it had been choreographed. “Here, have a beer.”
“Thanks, I could use one,” Richie said. He had never tasted beer in his life, but he was not about to let Bobby
Casey know that. Taking a good swallow, he felt its bitter taste spread through his mouth.
“So, you living with your old lady or what?” Stan asked.
Richie shook his head. “She’s dead. I don’t have a place to stay yet.”
“You’ll come home with me,” Stan declared at once. “There’s just my old lady and me now; my sister got married. I got my own room. You can stay long as you want.”
“Thanks, Stan.” Richie saw Bobby Casey glowering at him from across the table. Ignoring him, he said to Stan, “This is the second time you’ve found me a place to sleep. First time was that cave in the newspaper bundles, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Come on,” Bobby Casey said impatiently, “we shooting pool or what?”
“Drink your beer,” Stan said to Richie. “Soon’s I beat this guy’s ass at rotation, I’ll take you to my place.”
Richie just sipped at the beer, except when Bobby Casey was looking; then he took bigger swallows. It began to make him feel light-headed, and by the time the pool game was over and Stan was ready to go, Richie was a little tight. Putting up his stick, Stan said to Bobby, “We’ll see you later, at the candy store.”
“Yeah, we’ll see you later,” Richie chimed in. “If we can’t make it, we’ll write.”
Looking askance at him as they left, Stan asked, “You drink much beer?”
Richie cupped a hand over his mouth and said confidentially, “Counting the one I just drank, I’ve had one.”
“I thought so. Come on, let’s take a shortcut through the streetcar barns; I don’t want no cop seeing you and getting Solly in trouble for selling beer to minors.”
Stan and his mother were living at the Parkside Residential Hotel on Hamlin Boulevard. “I’ll be damned,” Richie said. “My mother and I used to live here. After she came back from having her kid.”
“No shit. You ought to feel right at home then.”