Authors: James Jones
And that was the start of it. Before they left Dering, where they had only stopped to get gas, they had consumed two fifths of whiskey between them, had spent the rest of the day and the entire night—again without sleep—and had eaten four meals; and before they left Jim Custis, they had met most of his immediate family, including his uncle James Frye, and they had learned more about Dering, Florida, and Dering College and met more people, than if they had come to Dering College for a year as exchange students.
Perhaps it would none of it have happened if ’Bama had not asked Jim Custis whether there were any antique shops in town. ’Bama was looking for an old eared three-legged iron pot and an iron teakettle for his wife who collected all kinds of old kitchen stuff, and it was obviously that kind of a town. Were there any? There were, Jim said, there were at least three, and he personally would take them to them. They found no iron pots but afterwards Jim Custis took them out to his house to look at an old brass pot which had been in his family a long time and he wanted ’Bama to tell him what it was worth. It turned out to be a brass jardiniere and was not worth very much and ’Bama told him so. Jim Custis looked disappointed, but while they were there, he said, he wanted them to meet his wife and kids, who were out of school today. The wife appeared to be perturbed at what was building up in Jim, but ’Bama with his experience of Southern women and with exquisite Southern manners charmed her completely out of it, although it was plain he did not reassure her. And all this while big Jim Custis stood sullenly by, trying to look like a host, but succeeding only in looking like a brooding wild bull, while some dark frustrated energy in him filled the whole room to bursting. He would just get out of these dungarees, he said, and he would be right with them. With a true cavalier’s sensibilities ’Bama said they would be glad to wait in the car.
“You want to meet some Southerners,” ’Bama said as they sat in the car, “I’ll show you some real Southerners. And you can make up yore own mind about them.” Something wild had begun to burn in ’Bama, too, some wild kind of pride, and when Jim Custis came back out of the house in a rumpled suit and white shirt with no tie, ’Bama grinned at Dave and then winked. That was when they bought their first three half-pints of whiskey, which Jim Custis insisted on paying for. They bought it in a filling station where they went in and Jim joked with the grease-smeared proprietor and gave him what was apparently a sort of required courtesy drink after he got it for them in the back. Then, drinking the whiskey but being careful not to be seen doing it, they drove around the town and talked. They talked about the town, and about the college, and about the Centennial, and about the folk play, but mostly they talked about women. They must go to the folk play tonight, Jim Custis insisted, it was a big thing in Dering and besides there were all kinds of women out there just waiting to be had. And then, as if making some momentous decision that had to do with the big argument he had obviously had with his wife while they waited on him out in the car, he said that he would take them out to the damned folk play himself, by God, and they would all have themselves a time.
By now, it was after noon and they ate a hamburger steak at a big truck stop on the edge of town. Then they went to get more whiskey. The more of it Jim Custis drank, the more wild and dark his face became, and the more belligerent he got. Dave noticed the same thing in ‘Bama, but in ’Bama, it only made him more deadly quiet and more hotly cold, until finally, he said almost nothing at all and just grinned murderously while his eyes flickered like two living flames. Some wild emotional spark in him called to, and was complemented by, the same thing in Jim Custis. It was the first time Dave had ever seen ’Bama really display really powerful emotion. Dave could feel something of the same thing in himself. It was a wild desire to smash out and to hell with what the consequences were. He knew he must be getting it from the other two, because he never felt like that when he drank.
Jim Custis kept saying that they were both great guys and they were going to have to meet his uncle James Frye, yes sir, great guys, he said belligerently as if he hoped they would disagree with him so he could fight them. If they thought he Jim Custis was a character, they should wait until they saw his uncle James Frye. He wouldn’t tell them anything about him, except that he was the greatest slashhound in Lever County. The point was, James Frye was in the folk play. He played the part of a Confederate sergeant. See, the folk play had been done by some playmakers group from Cincinnati, and was being put on in conjunction with the college. It was all about the history of the college, and outside of the main leads the rest of the actors were local people—either students or just local citizens—and his uncle James Frye was the Confederate sergeant, and he could get them in back stage where all the women were. James Frye lived on his farm out in the slash pine with his wife and five kids but he would be coming in town soon to another niece’s house, to get ready for the play. And, by God, he Jim Custis would take them down there. Wait till they met him. Wait till they
saw
him.
What they saw, when they barged into the little white clapboard house behind Jim Custis, was a slim rawboned high-shouldered giant of a man six feet nine inches tall, a few years older than Jim, with a pair of the most piercing eyes Dave had ever seen, and wearing long, grizzled hair and a grizzled, full beard. James Frye looked like a prototype of all the Confederates who had ever lived, even without the uniform. He was leaning on a mantelpiece like an ordinary man would lean on a countertop, and holding forth in a tremendous voice to a nervous-looking young man who was obviously a college student. Frye was obviously not pleased to see his nephew, or the condition he was in, nor the two strangers with him, and he boomed out in that voice: “By God, Jim. Have you been drinkin again?” and proceeded to deliver to his nephew a short explosive lecture on over-indulgence in alcohol but at the end of it, to alleviate everything harsh he had said, the grizzled beard parted and white teeth flashed in an intensely vital grin and he said, “What’re you drinkin?”
“Whiskey,” Jim said. “None of yore rotgut. Want one?”
“No, no,” James Frye boomed. “You know I’m on the wagon while the play is on.”
“Heh-heh,” Jim said.
Again Frye grinned that intense grin. “Well, I’m supposed to be.” Then he turned his piercing eyes onto the two strangers. But when Jim introduced them Frye’s eyes softened—toward all three of them, and looked at Dave unbelievingly. “Hirsh? Dave Hirsh? H-i-r-s-h?” The great piercing eyes narrowed. “Now, yore not by any chance D Hirsh? The writer, the novelist?”
Dave, who had long ago ceased to feel anything except acute embarrassment at the mention of his two abortive novels, nodded, unable to help wondering how this strange bearded giant in the backwoods of Florida would ever have heard of them.
As if reading his mind, James Frye’s face took on a sly humorous look that was at the same time fierily indignant. “You think us crackers back here in the slash pine and loblollies wouldn’t know about yore writin, hunh? You think we’re all ignorant Southerners. Well, I’ve read both yore novels. The first one wasn’t so much, but the second one—the one about the ball player—that was pretty good. Why ain’t you written any more?”
“I’m workin on one now,” Dave said.
“Yes?” James Frye said. “Okay.” After that, there was not enough he could do for them. Yes, he would fix it for them to come backstage; yes, he could fix them up with some of the girls, they could all go out together on a big party somewhere afterwards; he’d bring his own girl along, he grinned. He was obviously pleased that he was getting to take Dave out there and introduce him. ’Bama—who had mellowed some and was sitting back basking because his buddy had been recognized as a writer—James Frye only studied shrewdly and said very little to. His nephew Jim, whom it was plain he would rather not have had along, he was nevertheless equitable to—except that he ordered him about like a patriach. He was not, as it turned out, actually Jim Custis’s uncle; he was the husband of Jim’s wife’s aunt.
“Did Jim tell you he was related to Martha Custis Washington?” Frye boomed. “He is, you know. Well, I’m related to the Carters. The Carters of Virginia were aristocrats when the Custises and Washingtons were pore folks.
“Well, what do you know,” he boomed again. “And yore really ‘D Hirsh.’ Hey, Jim, by God, I b’lieve I will have one little drink. Now, don’t you tell on me, boy,” he said to the college boy on the couch. The boy grinned nervously.
Jim Custis passed his uncle his half-pint bottle with a grin. Since coming into the house he had become almost as quiet as a mouse. It was quite plain that he had a tremendous hero worship for James Frye. It was also apparent that everything had taken a turn Jim had not expected, with Dave’s being a writer, and one that he did not like. He seemed to feel it put him out of his depth. And he apparently felt he had committed a bad faux pas by not recognizing Dave as a famous writer himself.
Taking the bottle, James Frye had a small drink and then leaned back on the mantel and commenced to talk about the play. They were all nice kids out there, most of them were young college dramatics teachers from different parts of the country come here to be in on the play, he said. It did not take long, watching him, for it to become apparent that James Frye was very vain of his great height and stature—and also of his beard and long hair. “It must be this damned beard I’ve had to grow for my part,” he said tugging it and giving that violent grin of his, “that gets to them all so. I guess they never been kissed by a beard before. That and the fact that I’m sort of a character to everybody out there,” again he grinned, “they’re all civilized Northern city people, y’see.” Yes, he could fix it up for all of them tonight, Frye boomed. What would they need, four girls? Sure, he could fix that easy. Not only that, he knew a wonderful place where they could take them, an old, deserted cabin back in the slashes where nobody lived anymore. This girl he had in mind for Dave, he said, grinning, he’d had her out there. She’d be nuts to meet Dave; she wanted to be a playwright. Yes, sir, he boomed, they’d have themselves one hell of a party, to remember the crackers of Dering, Florida, with.
But it did not turn out that way. After spending the rest of the afternoon drinking whiskey with Jim and then attending the play, it turned out that James Frye could not get the girls after all. When they descended into the pandemonium of the backstage afterwards, the giant met them still in his Confederate uniform that he was obviously reluctant to take off, and took them off to one side and forced himself to admit that he hadn’t been able to do any good. Something else had come up. The director of the play was giving a party at his place and he had invited James Frye’s own girlfriend, and James Frye, too, and Frye had not been able to talk his girlfriend out of going. Of course, he himself wasn’t going. The other two girls he had picked out for Jim and ’Bama also wouldn’t go; they had dates themselves. Only the girl he had picked out for Dave was available. And now he wanted to introduce them all around to everybody, before everybody left, y’see.
Nobody said anything except Jim Custis, who muttered: “Oh, great Jesus!” whereupon James Frye turned on him and said, “Now, by God, shut up, Jim! I’m not worried about you. Youve got me into enough trouble with yore wife as it is. What I’m worried about is these gentlemen. They’re going to think we’re pretty crappy pickins here in Dering, Florida.” But neither Dave nor ’Bama cared very much, anymore. An afternoon of drinking with Jim and his peculiar brand of belligerent energy, plus so little sleep the night before, had finally worn both of them down into a state of dullness from which they viewed even women with apathy.
“Look, the truth is,” ’Bama said, “we didn’t either one of us have any sleep last night, and we wouldn’t either one of us be any good anyway. The best thing is for us to just hightail it on out of here and go right on to Miami.”
But now it was James Frye’s turn to grow fierily belligerent. He had promised them a party, and he would, by God, see that they had one. And anyway, he still had to introduce them around yet; so they’d talk about it later. It was obvious that James Frye had been doing some pretty heavy drinking on his own, since he had had those first ones with them at the house. Proudly, he led them around introducing them (it was plain everyone had a great affection for him) and then over to the lobby of the ladies’ dressing room where when he introduced them to his own girlfriend he did it very coldly, and then took them outside to meet the director and the staff. Then he led them back to the men’s dressing room where with obvious reluctance he began to get out of his uniform. Now the girl—she was the very first one they had met—would be waiting outside in just a few minutes. What he suggested was that Dave go on out with her and meet the rest of them later. What did they think of that? he said, as he adjusted the gray uniform on its hangers and gently put it back in the locker and began to get back into his own clothes. The change did not really change him much, Dave thought, just made him look to be on furlough.
Well, damn it, what did they think? Frye demanded. Dave had to refuse to go, and finally take refuge in the fact that he would not leave his buddy ’Bama to go off with a girl when his buddy didn’t have one, before the giant Confederate sergeant would give up on it. Even so, it was with a certain measure of reluctance that Dave turned it down; but his body was too exhausted by now to keep up with the wishes of his mind. Everything was turning into one of those Walpurgis Nights.
“Well,” the giant Confederate grinned through his beard, “it looks like we all gonna have us a stag party then, don’t it?”
And so it was that, some time after one o’clock in the morning (the play had finished at eleven-thirty), with five half-pints of whiskey, the four of them were driving along out in the pine slashes on an old gravel road to the old, deserted cabin James Frye had told them about. The cabin was only a couple of miles from his place, and they could let him off there on their way back. All during the ride, Jim Custis had been alternately sniffling and cursing. They had not gone out of town very far before he had begun to blame his uncle for getting him into the untenable position he now occupied, all for some slash he had promised but in the end was unable to procure.