Going All the Way (7 page)

He picked up a
Ladies' Home Journal
, just to get his mind off that crap, but even
they
had articles about it. There was one called “Is American Youth Radical?” and Sonny couldn't help turning to it to find out the answer. The article was written by a woman named Dorothy Thompson, and it said:

“The high schools and colleges are infiltrated with Communists.” So goes the argument in some circles.…

Sonny was glad to see Miss Thompson didn't go along with the argument. But what she did say kind of depressed him anyway. She was trying to say that young people weren't too bad, and one of the things she said to try to prove it was that

There was considerable anxiety in Washington lest the GI bonuses would be spent in riotous living. They were not. They were spent for education—and the GI was a very serious student.

Sonny kind of wished the GI money
had
been spent in riotous living. That's how he'd like to spend his, if he got the bill himself. Actually, he didn't see how you could live too riotously on $110 a month. But at least it could get you away from home. He was really going to look into it. Maybe he could even get a degree in photography, if they had them. It almost seemed impossible, getting paid to learn about something you liked.

He put down the magazine and went downstairs to the darkroom in the basement. He hadn't used it for a couple years, and there were a lot of crates of old clothes piled up in it. His mother collected old clothes and sent them to the Indians. She couldn't see why there was suddenly such concern about the colored when nobody cared about the Indians and they were the
real
Americans.

Sonny picked up his camera and blew the dust off of it. He hadn't used it since his last leave home. He loved the camera, but had just got out of the habit of using it regularly when he went in service. It was a Rollieflex, and he had bought it from one of the photographers at the
Star
, a guy who had helped him learn how to use it. He held it in his hands, and it felt solid and reassuring. He almost felt there was something magic about it, that it was a secret weapon he could use to free himself, to become a person in his own right, to have his own life that was different from his parents'. He resolved to go buy film as soon as his mother got back with the wagon.

5

For the next several days, Sonny and Gunner went on a picture-taking binge. Gunner could use his mother's wheels any day that he got up and drove her to work down at WIBC-TV, and he didn't even have to pick her up because some guy she dated at the station drove her home anytime she wanted him to. After leaving his mother off, he'd come by and honk for Sonny, and they'd go out with their cameras, driving all over town and shooting stuff. They drove to the top of Crown Hill Cemetery, a historic landmark of the city where the famous criminal John Dillinger was buried. From the top you could see almost the whole city spread below, flat and green. They went out to the Speedway and tried getting some action shots of the cars in the Time Trials for the great Five-Hundred-mile race that was held every Memorial Day and known throughout the world. They drove way north to where Gunner knew a guy who had a farm, and shot pictures of the livestock; they even took their cameras inside the Riviera Club swimming pool and got pictures of guys going off the high dive.

Gunner was restless, always asking questions, and he sort of reminded Sonny of a spy, or maybe a foreign correspondent, prowling the city and looking into little nooks and crannies and snapping pictures and asking people things, like he was trying to get the real scoop on this mysterious city and its natives, the puzzling place where he was born and grew up. He kept asking one particular question that people took as an insult, the question of some kind of nut or subversive troublemaker—
Why?

When Gunner got an urge to drop in on someone, Sonny just tagged along, listening and smiling. It turned out Gunner wasn't at all ashamed of being seen hanging around with a nobody, as Sonny had suspected he might be, but in fact seemed to want him along, seemed to like hashing things over with him after they'd been someplace, liked hearing what Sonny thought about what was said and what happened, even though most of the time Sonny pretty much agreed with him. Sometimes Sonny felt he ought to disagree more, feared that Gunner might suspect him of just sucking up to him or something, but actually Gunner was so damn convincing that Sonny really did buy most all his ideas and impressions, even the ones that were kind of weird.

One afternoon they buzzed out to Gunner's sister's house to get some shots of her kids. Gunner's sister Peachie lived on Guilford in the forties, one of those blocks of small graying frame houses and brick doubles with front porches, little front yards and occasional hedges to divide one yard from another, a few paint-chipping picket fences, and an alley in back with weather-beaten garages and a few backboards with iron hoops nailed up on them. It was hardly fancy, but nothing you had to be ashamed of; the sort of place a young couple started out in before going farther north to the newer, ranch-type developments. Peachie was only two years older than Gunner, but it might as well have been twenty years or so; the way she was settled into the niche of her life, it would take a load of dynamite to blast her out of it even if she wanted to. She had two little kids and went around most of the day with a kerchief around her head, mopping and cooking and dusting and washing. She had never been a pretty girl, but was sharp and energetic and fun to be around, and always able to organize things. She had been in some of the good clubs at Shortley and made Delta Gamma at Butler, where she went for a year before marrying Bud Belzoni.

Sonny remembered Belzoni from the teams at Shortley. He was never a star, seldom made first string, and when you thought about it his main talent was in
looking
good on the football or baseball field or the basketball court. There were always guys like that, and Sonny kind of got a kick out of them. In baseball they never could hit worth a damn but were terrific chatter guys—C'mon-babe-c'mon-boy-c'mon-Pete, throw it in there baby throw it past him babe way to go keed. In basketball they weren't good shots but were fancy dribblers and liked to pass behind their backs. In football they were the guys who always patted the lineman on the ass and yelled a lot of defensive warnings and pointed all over the place, but they seldom tackled anybody. But you needed guys like that. They made everybody feel better, and they looked like All-Americans.

Belzoni only went to Butler one semester and then joined the Naval Reserve and went to work at Allison's automotive and airplane plant. He worked the night shift and played on the company's semi-pro baseball team, the Allison Jets, which gave him an extra something every week during summer, though Peachie claimed he put it all back in beer. He was getting something of a belly on him, which was especially noticeable because he wore his pants down around his crotch. He still had a crew cut, and walked in a real pigeon-toed stride, and mostly hung around the house in an old pair of khakis and some sweat socks, drinking beer and scratching his belly and belching a lot. On his nights off he hung out with the boys, hitting the Tropics Club and the Topper and the Red Key. At least he said it was the boys, though Peachie suspected there were some girls, too. She'd confided to Gunner that once last year Belzoni came home with a case of the crabs that he said he must have got off a toilet seat.

“She must have been some toilet,” Peachie told him.

Peachie was nobody's fool.

The front room was littered with toys and kids. The baby, a little girl named Babs, was squawling in the playpen, and little Bud, Jr., who was around four years old, was playing soldiers with a little towheaded boy named Richard who lived next door. Peachie was in her faded blue jeans and a scruffy man's shirt with the sleeves rolled up, washing the inside of the windows. She said to go on back to the kitchen, she'd be there in a jiffy.

Belzoni was in the kitchen with his sweat-socked feet up on the table, drinking a Weidemann's and listening to a Cubs game on a portable radio. He popped a couple of beers for Sonny and Gunner, and even though they said they weren't hungry, he poked around in the icebox and brought out a bowl of some leftover potato salad, stuck a fork in it, and set it on the table next to where he propped his feet. He turned the ball game down a little so it was easier to talk.

“So,” Gunner asked, “how's the ball club doin'? You guys burnin' up the league?”

“Be serious, man. We lost our only pitcher who could get the fuckin ball over the plate. Remember Bo Begley?”

“Pitched for Manual-Tech?”

“Yeh, he even got a tryout with the Dodgers. Well, he got his fuckin pitching hand caught in a fuckin lathe last week. Lost two fingers.”

“Jesus,” Gunner sympathized, “what a break.”

“Put us up shit crick without a paddle,” Bud said. “Last night we got our ass cleaned by Link-Belt, fourteen-five.”

“That's rough,” Gunner said. “But what about Begley?”

“Like I said, he lost two fingers. No good to us now.” Belzoni belched, rubbing his stomach reflectively, and said, “Unless he could work on some kind of knuckle ball. Maybe he could develop a knuckle ball of some kind.”

Sonny felt himself rubbing his hands together, checking on his fingers. When he heard stuff like that, he got very nervous and checked to see if his own parts were in place. Peachie came in, got herself a beer, and pulled a chair up to the table with the guys.

“You taking the summer off?” she asked Gunner.

“I dunno. Trying to figure my next move.”

“You staying in Naptown?” Bud asked.

“I dunno. Doubt it.”

“Nina'll have a conniption fit,” Peachie said, “if you don't settle down here.”

Gunner got kind of red. “She'll live,” he said.

“Man, if I were you,” Belzoni said. “Loose as a goddam goose, nothing to tie you down—”

“Don't daydream,” Peachie said.

“I was just sayin' if I was Gunner, for Chrissake. If I was, free like that, I'd get my ass to the Coast.”

“California?” Gunner asked.

“You bet your sweet ass. Sun and sea, sea and sand. The Good Life, brother. Southern California.”

“What the hell,” Gunner said, “what's stopping
you?
”

“You bastard!” Peachie said. “My own brother.
I'm
stopping him, that's who, me and those two kids of his in there.”

“Hold it, Peach, I didn't mean he should cut out on you. I meant the whole bunch of you go.”

“Just pick up and leave?” she asked. “Just pack up and go to California, just like that.”

“Why not?” Gunner asked.

“Why not,”
she mimicked. “Money's why not, for one thing. What're we going to use for money? Sell the kids?”

“Whatya s'pose they'd bring?” Bud asked.

“Shut up, you bastard.”

“For Chrissake, Peachie,” Gunner said, “you think they don't have money in California?”

“Maybe
they
do, people who already live there.”

“Oh, and you don't think they let anybody else earn it?”

“Earn it
how?
” she shouted. “Picking up driftwood?”

“See,” Bud said, “you can't reason with her.”

Gunner rubbed hard at his forehead, and said, “Listen, Peach, thousands of people go there all the time, they go there and get jobs and buy houses and live in California.”

“Hell, yes,” Bud said, “it's Opportunitysville. Anyone'll tell you that.”

“We live
here
,” said Peachie, “in Indianapolis.”

“There isn't any law says you have to,” Gunner said.

“There isn't any law says we have to leave, either.”

“But why do you have to stay?” Gunner asked.

“It's home,” she said. “It's where we live.”

“I'd sure like to try that surfing,” Bud said.

“I know what you'd like to try,” Peachie said. “You'd like to try those blondes on the beach, that's what you'd like to try.”

Bud let out a belch.

“Seriously, Peach,” Gunner said, “there's nothing stopping you. Why not try the Coast for a while? If you don't like it you can always come back.”

“What're you, the California Chamber of Commerce?”

“I just don't like to see people tie themself down when they don't have to.”

“Wait'll you get a family, then you tell me all about how free you are.”

“I will,” Gunner said. “I'll wait. To get a family.”

“What're you gonna be, a bum or something?”

Belzoni got up and scratched under his armpit. “Don't listen to her,” he said. “Play it loose. Hey, I gotta get dressed. Take it slow, guys.”

“We better get moving,” Gunner said.

He got up and Sonny followed him to the door. Peachie stood there with her arms crossed, like she had to restrain herself from wringing Gunner's neck.

“Thanks a lot,” she said, “for putting that bug up his ass about California.”

Gunner started to say something and then he stopped himself and just said, “See ya, Peach,” and loped to the car. Sonny hurried along behind him, not wanting to look back at Peachie in the door.

After Gunner started the car, Sonny reminded him they forgot to take pictures of the kids.

“Well,” Gunner said, “it didn't seem like the time to do it.”

“No,” Sonny agreed.

Gunner said he felt like bashing some golf balls, and Sonny said he wouldn't mind watching, so they went out to Little America to the driving range. Sonny really couldn't stand golf. Once, when he was around twelve years old, his father took him out on a dewy spring morning to give him a golf lesson. It was one of those times Mr. Burns was trying to be like a father, but like most of his shy, halting efforts along those lines, it didn't quite come off. Sonny remembered with a vivid embarrassment how his father curled his hands over his, trying to show him how to grip the club, and Sonny could feel his father's hot breath on his neck and smelled the sweet mists rising off the tender early morning grass, and he was dizzy with the sadness of it, the fright of touching, the awkwardness of two human beings of the same flesh and blood who didn't know how to love and were clumsy with fear. Sonny tried, but he never hit one straight ball. His elbows and knees kept popping out at the wrong times, bending when they should have been straight, stiffening when they should have given. After the agonizing hour was over, his father said, “We'll try it again sometime,” and Sonny said, “Sure, that'd be great,” but neither of them ever mentioned it after that. Sonny wanted to thank his father for the effort, the good intention, but didn't know how. The words, whatever they were, clung to his throat.