Hard City

by Clark Howard

Stan grunted quietly. “Bobby said you wouldn’t stick for long.”

  “Fuck him,” Richie said irritably. “He don’t know shit.”

  “Yeah, well he was right about this, wasn’t he?” Stan retorted, an edge creeping into his own voice. “And I’ll tell you something else, Richie. Case might not have your looks or your style or your smarts, but there’s one thing he’s got that you never had—when I need him, he’s there! Seems like every time I cut you into a deal, you find something more important to do and walk out. It’s getting old, man.”

  “Stan, it’s not you I’m walking out on,” Richie tried to explain. “It’s this fucking life. I don’t want to go on stealing all my life. There’s got to be something better—”

  “For you, maybe!” Stan snapped. “But not for me! Not for Bobby!” He was suddenly angry. “Stealing’s all there is for us, unless we want to be pick-and-shovel slaves all our fucking lives! And we don’t! We don’t!” As quickly as he had become angry, he seemed to calm, his voice quieted. “We don’t,” he said one last time, not as loudly but just as firmly.

  They sat in awkward silence on the green wooden bench as two young mothers walked past pushing their toddlers in strollers. The late August day was getting hot and there were a lot of flies in the air. Stan brushed one away from his face.

  “Fucking flies, I hate ’em,” he said. “The goddamn scientists can make a camera that’ll develop a picture in one goddamn minute, but they can’t do anything about the goddamn flies.” After a moment, he reached over and slapped Richie on the muscle. “Go ahead, find a better life for yourself. Shit, I hope you make it. Just, if you ever come back, make sure it’s to stay next time.” Shaking his head woefully, he added, to himself, “Case’ll be saying 'I told you so’ for five fucking years.” Then to Richie, with another slap on the arm, “Go on, beat it.”

  “Thanks, Stan.” Richie stood and looked around the familiar park. “Well, so long.”

  “Look after yourself.”

  “You too.”

  Leaving the park to go get his things from Stan’s room, Richie could not help feeling that he had let somebody down yet again.

  49

  Getting off the train, Richie walked up the hill and turned down Moreridge Street. He was wearing jeans and a tee-shirt, and his hair was trimmed short again. In his zipper bag was a second set of clothes and several hundred dollars. All of his sharp Chicago clothes he had left for Stan.

  As he walked down the gravel street, he saw his grandmother sitting in her rocker on the sturdy end of the front porch, shelling peas into a pan. When he reached the porch, she said by way of greeting, “Never expected to see you again.” She looked apprehensive for a moment. “Are you in trouble?”

  “No, Miss Ethel, I’m okay,” Richie said. He had not set his bag down. “Uh, can I stay here while I finish high school?”

  “Don’t see why not,” Mrs. Clark said. “Long as we have the same arrangement as before. And if you can manage to keep a job.”

  “I’ve got money saved that’ll take me through part of the year if I can’t,” he told her. “I had a good job all summer working for a vending machine company.” Studying his grandmother, Richie thought she looked a lot older than he remembered. And she looked very tired. “How was your summer?” he asked.

  “Long,” she replied. “Every year that I work at the canning factory, it seems that the days get longer, the weather gets hotter, and my back hurts worse. But I have to do it if I want to keep the taxes on the house from going delinquent. That happens, there’s a penalty.” She nodded her head toward the screen door. “There’s iced tea if you’re thirsty.”

  Richie went into the house and put his things away and fixed himself a glass of iced tea. Returning to the porch, he handed his grandmother two hundred dollars. “To help with the taxes,” he said. Mrs. Clark frowned.

  “You don’t have to do that; it’s not part of our arrangement.”

  “Yeah, I know.” he said. “This is good iced tea,” he added, taking a swallow. He quickly went back inside in case his grandmother decided to thank him. That he could not have handled.

  In the little room that was his, he thought about what he had left behind in Chicago: friends, girls, quick money, good times, being part of something. And he thought about what he had taken in exchange: no friends, probably no girl any longer—if he knew Midge; maybe no income at all, and certainly not being accepted as part of anything. But he was nevertheless glad to be back, to be sitting in the little room where he had been born, to know that it was his as long as he wanted it. The rigid, severe little town of Lamont might not be his home, but this little house was.

  It felt good to be home.

  When Mrs. Reinhart saw him, she smiled delightedly and patted him on the arm. “I wasn’t sure you’d come back for another year,” she told him.

  “I wasn’t either,” he admitted.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve got the perfect job for you. Sam Levy’s Department Store needs a part-time stockboy. They want someone neat and presentable, as well as reliable. I’ll fill out a form and send you right up to see them. Oh, and I think you should go back on the Hi-Life staff too, if you can fit it in.” She got a teasing twinkle in her eyes. “I presume you’ll be paying for your own lunch again this year.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Richie could not help smiling.

  After he had signed up for all his classes, Richie walked back uptown and took the Distributive Education form to Sam Levy’s. He was directed to Sam Levy, the owner, a cocky, self-assured little man who at once reminded Richie of James Cagney. He wore a bright green shirt and a dark green tie. The cuffs of the shirt were turned up and buttoned backwards because the sleeves were too long for his arms.

  “Two to six on weekdays,” Mr. Levy told him, “and nine to nine on Saturdays. Sixteen dollars a week and twenty percent discount on purchases.”

  That was it; he got the job. As a “department store,” Levy’s was nothing like Richie was used to—Marshall Field’s and the Boston Store in Chicago—but it was nevertheless as wondrous a place to him as had been the soda fountain at Chalk’s Drug Store. Herbie showed him the shoe and soft goods stockrooms, and taught him how the stocked merchandise was arranged. He instructed him in how to check the displayed merchandise every day to see what needed restocking, how to price tag the various items, how to clean the display counters and shelves. One half of the store was set aside for menswear, the other half for ladies’ and children’s goods. Both shoe departments were in the rear, as was the wrapping counter and the cash register counter. Just as Chalk’s had been the nicest drugstore in Lamont, Levy’s was the nicest, most modern, and best-stocked department store. Richie could not believe his good fortune in getting a job there. He just hoped to God nothing went wrong on this job as it had on the last one.

  As Richie was leaving Levy’s after getting the job, Midge drove up in her pickup and blew the horn at him. Richie went over to her. “I see you came back after all,” she said without preliminaries. “Did you have a good time in Chicago?” She elaborately emphasized the city’s name.

  “I was too busy working to have a good time,” he lied, then wondered why he had.

  “I guess you’ve heard that I have a new boyfriend?”

  “I haven’t heard anything.”

  “Well, for your information, I am now going steady with Leroy Sadler. He’s a senior this year, like you. His daddy owns the place two farms down from ours. We got to talking at the cotton gin one day and hit it off right from the very start. After he graduates, instead of going to college, Leroy’s going to help his daddy run the farm. So he’ll always be around.” Pausing a beat, Midge then said, “I suppose you’re going to be upset because I didn’t wait for you. But you know I told you before you left that I simply was not going to waste my whole summer just sitting around, while you were up north doing Lord knows what with those Yankee girls.”

  “I’m not upset, Midge,” he told her simply. “
I didn’t expect you to waste your summer.”

  “Well, I felt I had to tell you about Leroy myself,” she said, “so there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding. I have to go now. Leroy’s daddy has a house down on Reelfoot Lake and Leroy and me meet down there of an evening.” She lowered her voice. “We go swimming in the buff.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Richie said. He could not help envying Leroy a little. As shallow as Midge was in other respects, when it came to sex she was sensational. He imagined Leroy went around with a smug look on his face most of the time.

  “All right then, no hard feelings, okay?”

  “Okay,” Richie agreed.

  Midge drove off, leaving Richie standing in the street. Before he could get back to the sidewalk, a car came by, missing him by inches. It stopped and backed up. Billy Pastor smiled at him from behind the wheel. There were three other boys in the car with him.

  “You better not be standing around in the street like a fool, Yankee,” he said. “Somebody’s liable to run over you.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Richie said, trying to control his voice. Billy’s car had scared the hell out of him.

  “You going to school down here again?” Billy asked.

  “That’s right.”

  Billy grinned at his friends. “Good. I was scared it was going to be a boring year.”

  “What the hell have you got against me anyway?” Richie asked sharply. “Don’t tell me you’re still sore about the soda jerk job?”

  “I’m not sore about nothing,” Billy said, his grin disappearing. “I just don’t like Yankees.”

  “That’s stupid,” Richie snapped. Billy put his car in neutral and got out.

  “You calling me stupid?”

  Richie saw Mr. Levy standing in front of the store. A fight on the town square could not possibly escape attention. “I didn’t call you anything,” Richie backed down.

  “If you called me stupid, I’ll whip your ass right here, Yankee.”

  “I didn’t call you anything,” Richie repeated. “I just meant it was stupid to stay mad about something like that soda jerk job. But since you’re not mad about it, you can’t be stupid.”

  Grunting derisively, Billy got back into the car. “Chickenshit,” he said as he drove off.

  Humiliation searing his whole being, Richie started home. He had been excited about telling his grandmother about his new job. Now, swallowing his shame, he was too deflated to care.

  School, as usual, went well for Richie. He was still not socially acceptable to the vast majority of his peers, still found himself referred to as “Yankee” instead of by his name, and was still subject to occasional, though less frequent, “accidental” bumps, shoves, and trippings. Now that Midge was treating him with studied indifference, he had no one at school to talk to, and rarely spoke except to a teacher or when called on in class. The one exception was the other members of the Hi-Life staff. Because they all worked on the same project, and were in and out of the Hi-Life room at odd times, Richie was at least included in their conversations about the school paper. He was not embraced as one of them, but it was about as close as Richie expected to get.

  His work on the paper became his most rewarding activity at school. Where once his greatest challenge, and thus his greatest enjoyment, had been the crafting of a book report, now he was caught up in the work of understanding a factual happening and committing it to the written word. The entire process fascinated him: to see something with his eyes, take that thing into his mind, translate it from seeing to telling, and then, most challenging of all, write about it for others to read. Unlike book reports, what he wrote for the paper was read by many people. His words—read by many people. Ironic too, he realized, that the very same students who did not like the words he spoke, read the words he wrote.

  Even though he was not as much a pariah among the Hi-Life staff, it did not endear him to them that the work was easy for him, that he always finished his assignments far ahead of them, and seemed to find it all so enjoyable. Some of the members of the staff labored over their stories. One senior, Jennie, was prone to temper tantrums when there was no teacher present.

  “I hate this!” she frequently announced, jerking paper from her typewriter and tearing it to shreds. “Everything I write sounds stupid!”

  “Why do you do it if you don’t like it?” Richie asked one day when they were in the room alone. The school newspaper was an extra-curricular activity, not a required class.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” she replied icily, “but I’m doing it for extra credit in English. The reason I need extra credit in English is because none of my book reports make sense. Mrs. Reinhart thought this experience might help me. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

  “Sure,” Richie said, shrugging. “Sorry I asked.”

  As Jennie rolled another sheet in and resumed her toil, Richie surreptitiously studied her. She was a tall girl with a long face and waist-length, tobacco-colored hair. The way she dressed reminded him of Linda: full swirling skirt, neat, starched blouses, ballet slippers. She wore little makeup and was paler than most of the other girls. The daughter of an attorney, she drove her own convertible, smoked, and occasionally muttered a “goddamn it” in the Hi-Life room. Richie had read in Lamont’s weekly newspaper that she was engaged to marry a previous year’s graduate who was going through naval officer training school.

  “Do you want me to help you with your article?” Richie finally asked impulsively when Jennie jerked the next sheet of paper out.

  “Just how,” she inquired in the same glacial tone, “could you do that?”

  “Give me all your notes and any drafts you’ve written so far,” Richie said. “I’ll take the stuff home and rewrite it for you tonight.”

  “You’re the best writer in the class,” she said, frowning. “They’d know you did it.”

  Richie shook his head. “I can use your drafts as a guide and make it read like you wrote it.”

  Jennie’s pale face became suspicious. “I suppose you’d brag to the rest of the staff about doing it.” It was not a question, it was an accusation. Richie shook his head again.

  “I don’t brag.”

  Studying him in the wake of that, Jennie’s frown and the suspicion in her expression disappeared. “I guess I should have known that,” she rationalized. “Nobody’s ever heard you mention Midge.” Caught off guard by the remark, Richie could not conceal his astonishment. Jennie suppressed an amused smile. “Midge does brag,” she said, to alleviate his surprise. Embarrassed now, Richie felt himself turn warm with color. “Well, my goodness,” Jennie said at that, “aren’t you the modest one!” Again, it was not a question, but her way of evaluating him.

  “Look,” Richie said, irritated, “don’t do me any favors by letting me help you.” He went back to his own work, which was writing an extra credit book report on Hi-Life time.

  Several minutes later, Jennie came over and put her draft and notes on his desk. “All right,” she said. “Thanks.” She kissed her finger and touched his cheek with it.

  At the store Mr. Levy began teaching Richie about the men’s clothing and shoe business. Without being overbearing, but sensing that Richie had a genuine desire to learn, Levy, as he taught him how to unpack, invoice, tag, and stock new merchandise, managed to include in his conversation bits of knowledge that he knew Richie would pick up.

  “These broadcloth shirts are $3.95,” he would say, “and these oxford cloths are $4.50. The broadcloth is the smooth, flat fabric, and oxford has the texture to it.”

  Or: “These wingtips, the ones with a curved design on the toe, I think we’ll stock over here on the side.”

  Or: “The garbardine suits will be $45. I like the way gabardine feels. Here, run your fingers over this sleeve. No other cloth in the world has the feel of gabardine.”

  He could just as easily have said the shirts in these boxes are one price, the shirts in those boxes another. Or, all the shoes on those sh
elves are a certain price, all the suits on that rack. It was not necessary to explain to a stockboy why. But Sam Levy did.

  Richie loved the store. The shining glass and chrome counters and display cases, with their multicolored stacks of shirts, socks, neckties, pajamas, belts, were an endless source of delight to him. His orderly, logical mind liked everything in neat, precise order, spotless. As quickly as anyone opened a case or touched a counter, he was there wiping off the fingerprints, straightening the merchandise a quarter of an inch. He segregated merchandise by color as well as size, although no one told him to. On Sundays, when Levy sometimes changed the outside window displays, Richie went up to the store and helped him without being asked. Watching Levy select outfits to dress mannequins, Richie began to develop a sense of style and an appreciation of how colors mixed and changed when put next to one another. Seeing the fashions coming into favor in the little Southern town—khaki trousers, plaid shirts, saddle shoes—Richie realized how accurate Linda had been about the way he dressed in Chicago. The zoot suit fad was ludicrous here.

  Gradually, with his store discount, Richie began to build up a decent wardrobe for himself. Sometimes in class, or to and from school, he would notice someone admiring how he looked. Most of the students drove or had regular rides to Lamont High; Richie was one of a very few who walked—and the only one who walked from one end of the town to the other. Often during the first half of his senior year, when cars passed him, he would see a girl turn for a better look as she went by. But—still—no one stopped to offer him a ride. The only acknowledgment he got from a car was when Billy Pastor cut close to the curb trying to splash him on rainy days.

  At home, the relationship between Richie and his grandmother had settled into a mold that was comfortable for both of them. He gave her at least ten dollars a week for his room and board, occasionally a little more—tapping his savings if necessary when there were extra expenses of some kind: a broken water pipe, or when she had to go see the doctor about something. She no longer questioned his coming and goings, seeming to be satisfied that he was not going to get falling down drunk, engage in brawling, try to rob the Bank of Lamont, or otherwise scandalize her good name.