Authors: James Jones
And yet, underneath it all, underneath the gin-bravado, the panic still lurked, ready to rise up the first moment he let the alcohol level in his system get a bit too low. And not the least of its causes was that manuscript lying in there in that little writing room, gathering dust in there from week to week—that manuscript—whenever he saw it, no matter how drunk he was, he had to go quick and have another drink.
And that was why he could not stop. That damned Gwen: She had made a writer out of him again, when he hadn’t wanted to be a writer anymore again, and he was letting the manuscript lie there and rot because he was too drunk to work on it. That was why he couldn’t stop: If he stopped, he would have to face the fact that he had wasted over two precious months on being drunk and sorry for himself—two months, and more, that could never be regained. And he could not face that; not without help.
He had meant to go back over to Israel to see Old Bob. But lethargy and apathy made him even incapable of that. Anyway what good could Bob do him? Hadn’t he said himself no man could
really
help another? And anyway, he could not stand the thought of going there inside that house with so many myriad memories of Gwen.
Dewey and Hubie, at least, were a great help to him, anyway. They had been coming around more and more now, and without their girls. Whenever they were there, he could laugh with them over anything: caustic, bitter, like the mean-looking broken-nosed Dewey had been laughing ever since his brother Raymond’s death. At least, there was that much release from pain.
But then Dewey and Hubie left. And there was nobody left but ’Bama.
They came around one day, both three-fourths drunk, to announce that finally they had decided to go back in the Army. After struggling with this momentous decision for six full months, they had at last made up their minds: After all, what was there here for them, they said? A couple women that wanted to tie them down? A cheap job in some plant somewhere, where they could work away the rest of their lives? The unfound generation, Dewey had said; and now said again: What do we know but the Army? We’re both good soldiers; well-trained soldiers; why not go back to our trade, ’ey? They were, in fact, acting out in their lives the very principle Dave had evolved for his novel: the modern-day professional Roman legionary—though, of course, they were not aware of this.
(But Dave was, and wanted to weep, thinking about that manuscript gathering its dust.)
And besides, they added, the govmint’s offerin to take back the World War II vets at the old ratings they had—offerin all kind of added inducements—and, by using a little pull here and there they ought to be able to fix it so they could stay together, in the same outfit.
They were the block the modern-day prosperity was founded on, weren’t they: the old Army pros? Why shouldn’t they get in on as much gravy as they could? And so, after one more heavily drunken party with Dave and ’Bama, they left, going to Chicago to reenlist.
And right away, without the comfort of that illusory companionship, everything started going from bad to worse. With them gone, Dave could no longer see himself and ’Bama and their situation as adventurous. Which only drove him back for more drinks.
Finally, he got so bad off that even ’Bama got on him about it.
“Hell, at least I sober up a little bit sometimes, when Ahm down at the farhm,” he said drunkenly. “But you don’t never sober up at all.”
“So what?” Dave said equally drunkenly.
“Well, Ah just hate to see it, thas all,” ’Bama said. They were both sitting at the kitchen table, drinking. ’Bama’s Southern accent got much stronger when he was drunker. “You got a talent, Dave. That’s why. And you ain’t done no writin on that book of yores for what—almost three months now. Hell, what do you think Ah tied up with you in the first place for?”
“Because I was big-shot Frank Hirsh’s brother.”
“Mebbe so; at the very first. But that ain’t why Ah went to Florida with you, and then taken this heah house with you. Ah admired you, and Ah admired yore talent. Hell, I used to respect you.”
“I used to respect you, too,” Dave said slackly.
“And now—” ’Bama said, grinning bitterly, “we don’t neither one of us respect the other.”
It was, in fact, a rather momentous statement, and Dave recognized it as such, drunk as he was. But it could not impinge upon his drunken apathy.
“That’s about the size of it, I guess,” he said.
“Well, it’s yore life,” ’Bama grinned. “I cain’t git you out of it.”
“You want me to leave?” Dave said thickly. “After all, it’s you that’s spendin all the money, and payin all the bills.” Which was true. Dave had some time back run through all the money in his savings account: the money from the two stories, the accumulated money from his share of the taxi service, which was still paid to him and now he was throwing into the kitty every month. “Just you say the word,” he said.
“Did Ah say that?” ’Bama said. “No. Yore welcome to stay here as long as you want. It don’t matter about me. Hell with me. But, man, you got a talent. You oughtn’t to jus’ throw it away.”
“Why not?” Dave said. “It’s my talent.”
After that, ’Bama said no more about it. But the acid accusation—at himself as well as at Dave—was often in his eyes. As a matter of fact, they had not in fact renewed the one-year lease on the house, which had fallen due in May—any more than they had, this year, worked any on their vacant-lot garden, which was now growing back up in weeds. But Judge Deacon had arranged to sort of carry them along on a month-to-month basis with the house, handling it both for them and for the Albersons in Florida, until they could definitely make up their mind about it. Which, by the end of July, they had not done. Neither of them was in any condition to do so, and what with the old life that had existed here for a year being totally gone now, neither one of them was sure of just which way the log would fall. And now they were both engaged in this protracted jag, which not only took all their time, but also sapped their energy.
What had made it change? Dave wondered. He had seen it coming, had felt it, almost, in his bones. Was it really true that Raymond Cole’s death back in January had something to do with it? Or was it that, at about that same time, he had fatuously convinced himself he was no longer in love with Gwen French and that he had given up on her? Or was it the simple fact of Lois Wallup weeping bitter tears in the kitchen while he listened that somehow had caused it? He didn’t know. Probably he never would know. He went back to get another drink.
It was not until some time in August that an event happened to cause him to start coming out of it. By that time, between them, he and ’Bama—not counting Dewey and Hubie and the others, when they were still there—had consumed untold gallons of whiskey and gin, and probably never would entirely get over it, either one of them, physically. Especially ’Bama. But then, as Wally Dennis had once told him rather profoundly: The human body can stand an amazing amount of punishment and still get over it, still recover. Old Wally, Dave thought affectionately (now that the kid was gone), wonder how he’s likin the Army now?
The event that happened which started bringing him, at least somewhat out of it, was that he got a letter from Ginnie Moorehead, in Kansas. Delivered at the house where they got all the regular mail, it lay for several days stuck in the mailbox on the porch, before Dave happened to see something white there one day as he was driving his little Plymouth drunkenly in from having been out at Smitty’s. When he got it, and saw who it was from, he wanted to laugh. When he took it inside and opened it, it read:
Dear Dave,
I guiss you will be suprized to hear from me after this such longe time. Will you remember Old Ginnie Moorehead that you use to date. Well I am living out hear in Kanzas and I ain’t happy. He lied to me, Dave. His fathor don’t have no big wheet farm atall. His fathor has a littel tiny shack of a plase where he grow a few littel akers. It is a horibel shack and I am the only woman. It is teribel. There’s not no trees no place for miles around. And the hot sun beat downe. When I cry, he beats me up. I am very unhappy. He held a gun on me oncet which he brung home from the Marynes and threaten to shoot me. If I ever trid to run away. Pleaze help me, Dave. 1 don’t know nobody else to rite a letter to. I am afrad I will git killd. I am riting this leter secret. Pleaze help me. Pleaze send fifty dolors to Gen’l Delivry. It is the only way 1 can git away. 1 relize now it was you 1 lovd all the time. Pleaze help me. You the only one I can tern to. You are so kind and good. But 1 want you to know even if you do not send the mony I will always lov you anyways for ever and ever. But pleaze help me. Pleaze send the mony. Yore loving frend, Ginnie Moorehead
He did not know whether to laugh or cry over it. Mostly he just felt amazement at the spelling. Poor old Ginnie. And so “Fate” had finally caught up to her, too, just like the rest of us. That she did indeed love him, Dave suddenly realized for perhaps the first time. He was not naive enough to think that all the protestations of love were not without ulterior motive: i.e., getting away from that hellhole; but you couldn’t blame her for that. And in spite of that, some quality of real agony seemed to reach him through the scrambled handwriting. Suddenly, half drunk as he still was, and had been for so long, he felt genuine pity for her. Everybody treated her like a bum. And apparently, he was the only one anywhere to whom she could turn.
He showed the letter to ’Bama, when the big gambler came home, and they both laughed—a little shamefacedly—over it; and yet there was that same quality of—of pity—on ’Bama’s face, too.
“Well, yore goin to send her the money, ain’t you?” he asked. “There ain’t no need for everybody to suffer as much as you and me do. Not, anyway, when it can be prevented for just fifty bucks.” Suddenly, he swore. “Christ, now we’ll have that slobby bitch hangin around the place again like before.”
Dave sent the money. He had to cash a check, and then get a money order at the post office with the cash, so he had to at least clean himself up a little before going down into town proper. That started it.
And then, quite suddenly, he began to sober himself up and to think—for the first time in months—without fear about his book again. At least, there was somebody in the world who needed his help, a little bit, anyway.
That day, after he had mailed her the money order, he drove out North Main to the new bypass, which had been opened up in June. He had never even seen it before. But ’Bama had told him about the tremendously huge new building that was going up at the junction, and that Frank Hirsh was building it. It was supposed to be some kind of a new-fangled “shopping center.” So Dave drove out to look at it.
It was indeed going up: almost all of the external brickwork had been completed and they were beginning to put the roof on; and after he had parked his car off the pavement, and sat in it to look it over, he saw the high facade rising up over all the rest of it upon which was spelled out in letters of green and yellow tile the legend: Hirsh Block.
Old Frankie boy was really getting up there, and he remembered how once—so very long ago; when he first returned to Parkman—Frank had wanted him to go in with him permanently. After a while, he turned around and drove back home.
F
RANK WAS OUT AT
the shopping center, as it happened, when Dave drove out to look at it; but he did not see his brother’s car. He was far too busy. But if he had seen it, he would not have done anything. Except perhaps look at it a moment, and say to himself those most delicious of all words: “I told you so; but you wouldn’t listen to
me.
” He had offered Dave a chance to go in with him; and Dave had turned it down because he just didn’t have the faith that his brother would ever accomplish all the things he said he would. Now, he was being shown—just like everybody was being shown.
Success had dropped its mantle upon Frank Hirsh like a large tent, and while its material was beautiful, complete with gold thread and encrusted designs, and he loved it, it nevertheless came damned close to suffocating him sometimes. If Frank had thought he was busy back in May, when all the too-late speculators were scrambling for sites, he just, by God, didn’t know nothin. Back in May was as nothing compared to what happened to him after the Parkman Village started to go up, and the news got bruited about as to just what it was. He had never rushed around so much, or met with so many people so much, or talked so damned much, in his life before.
The Greek and the old man, Clark’s father-in-law, were doing it up brown—true to their strictly adhered-to principle of quality before everything. But in this case, there was quantity as well as quality. They were spending the money, practically pulling the stopper clean out of the bottle. There were to be twelve places of business in the unit, five along the short side of the L and seven along the long side, and space for nearly three hundred cars in the parking lot. And Frank was handling the whole thing. It was not his money, but he had the spending of it; and to all intents and purposes, that made it as if it was his money. Of course, part of it was his money—a small percentage—all, in fact, that he could beg, borrow, and scrape together to put into it—just a little over a hundred thousand dollars, which was a little less than one-fifth of the total since the whole shopping center operation alone was going to run close to seven hundred thousand to build. But his share figured to pay itself out entirely in six months or less, which would bring him entirely out of debt—and therefore give him just that much more to pour back in.
So some of it was his money. But most of it was not. But, since he had the spending of it, it was as if it was his; because everybody had to come to him: contractors, architects, salesmen, everybody. And he reveled in it.
But all this was only a small portion of his time that was being taken up so fully. Because, once it became known in town just what this place was going to be, every businessman in the county was on his back. He had to talk to one right after another, all day long, and then go right on back to talking to the same ones over again all day long the next day. They were, all of them, placed in the position of either having to open a branch store themselves in the shopping center, or be faced with the fact that they were going to be facing new competitors. Almost without exception, this meant—temporarily, at least—overextending themselves, to open a branch store. And Frank Hirsh was the man they all had to come to.